Networking AIDS.Networking AIDSAccording to according to prep. 1. As stated or indicated by; on the authority of: according to historians. 2. In keeping with: according to instructions. 3. the network theory of immunology, after the immune system immune system Cells, cell products, organs, and structures of the body involved in the detection and destruction of foreign invaders, such as bacteria, viruses, and cancer cells. Immunity is based on the system's ability to launch a defense against such invaders. starts pumping out an antibody, it will eventually "see" the antibody and begin pumping out an antibody to that first antibody. In the process, the immune response immune response n. An integrated bodily response to an antigen, especially one mediated by lymphocytes and involving recognition of antigens by specific antibodies or previously sensitized lymphocytes. gets muted. Since a fatally muted immune rsponse is a hallmark of AIDS, researchers Sybille Muller, H.C. Chang and Heinz Kohler investigated what happens to repeatedly immunized animals and compared that to what occurs in AIDS patients. People get AIDS after being exposed not only to the virus but to foreign material -- blood or semen semen or seminal fluid Whitish viscous fluid emitted from the male reproductive tract that contains sperm and liquids (seminal plasma) that help keep them viable. -- as well. To mimic that exposure, the scientists, all of Roswell Park Memorial Institute in Buffalo, N.Y., challenged mice with multiple injections of cells from a different strain of mice. The mice were constantly mounting an immune response to the foreign cells. When the mice were injected with a molecule from a bacterium, they produced fewer antibodies than did a control group, and the ratio between two types of immune system cells, T helpers and T suppressors, decreased. Both the suppresed ability to respond and the change in the T cell ratio occur in AIDS. "Just by manipulating the immune system you can have an AIDS-like effect even without infectious particiles," says Muller. Repeated infections or exposures to foreign substances, she says, may thus make high-risk group high-risk group Epidemiology A group of people in the community with a higher-than-expected risk for developing a particular disease, which may be defined on a measurable parameter–eg, an inherited genetic defect, physical attribute, lifestyle, habit, members more susceptible to attack by the AIDS virus AIDS virus n. See HIV. . |
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