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Adult immune systems ‘remember’ germs to which they’ve never been exposed (2013)
- jmalicki 7y agoWilliam Petri is a wonderfully appropriate name for a professor of infectious diseases.
- cjbenedikt 7y agoDon't dish it out...
- kaesar14 7y agoAdmire the attempt but this just didn't really make much sense
- mywittyname 7y agoIt's so agarvating when puns miss their mark.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- patcon 7y agoheh, normally how these friendly call-response threads work is someone either yes-and's the attempt [1] or ignores/downvotes it. Just because we're on HN, that doesn't mean puns need to be critiqued -- even if they are agaravatingly bad :) [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yes,_and.. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yes,_and...
- samatman 7y agoIt kinda does, though. I like that HN has a very high bar for humor, and cracks down on soft-pitch puns which are an attempt at a long chain of groaners. Reddit exists, and if you like that, you can get it on Reddit. Here it's just noise. We have other bad habits ;)
- guerrilla 7y agoHere you have to make a plausible argument that the expert who spent their life studying something has no idea what they're talking about and you somehow know better, or manage to one-up the parent who just did something like that with some exceptionally high-grade sophistry.
- chadlavi 7y agolove nominative determinism
- techbio 7y agoThere’s a term for this! The orthodontist that adjusted my siblings braces was named Dr. Hurt (or some homonym) and I’ve observed similar many times since.
- nobrains 7y agohttps://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aptronym https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aptronym
- hirundo 7y ago"...memory CD4s proliferated and otherwise became activated in response to exposure to certain components of the influenza virus, but also to epitopes of several different bacterial and protozoan microbes. This cross-reactivity could explain why exposure to common bugs in the dirt and in our homes renders us less susceptible to dangerous infectious agents." So the CD4 is a key activated to fit a particular lock, but given the imperfections of locks it fits a random assortment of others too. As we build up a keychain of these we have a better chance to fit any random lock. But why doesn't the larger keychain also increase the chances of auto-immune diseases when they happen to fit our own locks? Or increase inflammation from other benign microbes it fits? Seems like the metaphor needs work.
- nullc 7y ago> But why doesn't the larger keychain also increase the chances of auto-immune diseases, when they happen to fit our own locks? The process that generates immune cells tests them for autoimmune reactivity and aggressively culls ones that are.
- nomel 7y agoCould you provide the name for this, or something I could search for? This is fascinating.
- rcthompson 7y agoLook up the function of the thymus in T-cell development and selection. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thymus#Function https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thymus#Function
- alextheparrot 7y agoThe term is "Central Tolerance". The Thymus (Which someone else mentioned) effectively checks the following: (1) Does the cell react to an antigen (Foreign particle) [β-selection] (2) Does the cell still work with the immune system (Can it bind to the cells it needs to bind to once it finds the antigen) [Positive Selection] (3) Does the cell recognize only foreign particles and not the body itself [Central Tolerance / Negative Selection]
- spacephysics 7y agoWould epigenetics from past ancestors explain this? [0] [0] = https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/fearful-memories-passed-down/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/fearful-memories-...
- abainbridge 7y agoNo. The article says newborns don't have these activated CD4 cells.
- hunterx 7y agoNot on the article but...my understanding is that we have genetic material which has these encounters in it and so it’s transmitted over generations. If it does help or not or even if it manifests at any point and creates antibodies is out of the scope of what I know. However, the epigenetic activation is dependent on many factors.
- hpoe 7y agoSo I do not understand much about biology but could this effect explain why we seem to have so many people test positive for anti-bodies on COVID-19 tests, compared to other forms of testing?
- vikramkr 7y agoLikely not, the more likely explanation is asymptomatic cases. There is a possibility of false positives and that could be driven by something like these nonspecific antibodies so that's why I say "likely not" vs "definitely not" and the answer to whether it "could" is yes, but whether it "does" I personally I think asymptomatic cases are the more likely explanation
- md224 7y agoI don't think CD4 cells are the same as antibodies, right? I assume that when we test for antibodies, we're not testing for CD4 reactivity...
- hutzlibu 7y agoI understood, that the false positive antibodie tests, come from different antibodies against different corona virus or just the flu, because they are too similar.
- wh1t3n01s3 7y agoOnly if the person tested is more than 100 years old (ie spanish flu antibodies)
- abainbridge 7y agoCould someone add 2013 to the title? I just spent 15 minutes thinking I must be a genius because I had already figured this out. Now I realise I read about it already.
- bsoyka 7y agoI agree, bit confusing. I never read about it until now.
- Ozzie_osman 7y agoCould partly explain why it seems like covid-19 isn't hitting developing nations as hard. They have more antibodies to other viruses. There's also the theory that the tuberculosis vaccine (mandatory in many developing nations but not in developed ones) helps too, and there are clinical trials going on to confirm that.
- chosenbreed37 7y agoSounds plausible. It may be premature to assess the relative impact of covid-19 in those nations. Hopefully you're on to something though...
- thedudeabides5 7y agoIt's also warm and wet in many developing nations. Seen a couple pieces suggesting COVID is relatively heat-phobic. Would also jive with seasonality of the flu...
- yters 7y agoI graphed death rate by absolute latitude for countries with more than 1000 cases, and there is a clear trend. There is a bulge in the middle latitudes, and dips toward the lower and higher latitudes. My guess is the virus doesn't do well in hot climates, and people don't congregate much in very cold climates.
- romski 7y agoIt’s the spring in the northern hemisphere, it’s not cold anywhere in the US or Europe. I don’t see how your conclusion is relevant
- coreyp_1 7y agoYup not cold at all here in Indiana. Please disregard the snow that we had earlier this week... Lol. It's quite difficult (misguided) to generalize about an entire country!
- 7y ago
- acqq 7y ago(2013)
- worldvoyageur 7y agoI grew up on a farm. It was common knowledge that when a calf, or a lamb was born they needed to get that first milk from their mom. The first milk looked different and was called colostrum. Colostrum contained a large assortment of antibodies from the mother that were transmitted to the newborn. If there was some health issue, the mother died or the newborn couldn't drink, we had colostrum in the freezer. If we didn't give it, the odds dropped dramatically of the newborn making it more than a few months. So, yes, mammals, including people, get immunities to germs they have not been exposed to.
- Ovah 7y agoThis reminded me of neonatal lupus. Lupus is an autoimmune disease where your own antibodies attacks your tissues. In neonatal lupus, the newborn is born with lupus ... because materal autoimmune antibodies are able to cross the placental barrier. So the newborn 'inherits' a lupus condition, which usually self resolves within a month once the maternal antibodies have disappeared. https://rarediseases.org/rare-diseases/neonatal-lupus/ https://rarediseases.org/rare-diseases/neonatal-lupus/ This is presumably applicable to other maternal antibodies, which may give immunity against germs the infant has never been exposed to. However, this is a 'temporary' immunity, and distinct from the adaptive immune responses associated with 'immune system memory'.
- refurb 7y agoExactly. They typically give pregnant women a Tdap booster in the 2nd trimester. The mother develops an immune response and she transmits those antibodies to the baby. When the baby is born, they have some temporary protection against those diseases, but as you said, it only last a month or two.
- Wowfunhappy 7y agoMy understanding was that breast milk (at least in humans) gave the baby antibodies, but not the ability to create those antibodies. So, the effect wouldn't last.
- 7y ago
- isbwkisbakadqv 7y agoarticle doesn't provide any citation to the article it is summarizing...
- lomoramic 7y agohttps://www.cell.com/immunity/fulltext/S1074-7613(13)00052-6?_returnURL=https%3A%2F%2Flinkinghub.elsevier.com%2Fretrieve%2Fpii%2FS1074761313000526%3Fshowall%3Dtrue https://www.cell.com/immunity/fulltext/S1074-7613(13)00052-6...
- koeng 7y agoAntibody production in vertebrates is an amazing example of an extremely efficient directed evolution system within our own tissues. There is some interesting work being done to mine antibodies from people who have recovered from diseases and use those as a therapeutic medicine. Worked great for Ebola, would also work for COVID-19, but scaling production is really really hard (maybe some schlep blindness there)! If I recall correctly, they pretty much put the gene for the anti-ebola antibody into a plasmid in bacteria, then vacuumed those bacteria into tobacco, which mated with the tobacco, which caused over-expression of the antibody. Then, you grind up the plant, and purify the protein. I'm interested in trying that out with my own blood - effectively making open source antibodies for different diseases. I also know a few folks working on DNA vaccination, which could have an interesting intersection.
- chiefalchemist 7y ago“It may even provide an evolutionary clue about why kids eat dirt,” said Davis. “The pre-existing immune memory of dangerous pathogens our immune systems have never seen before might stem from our constant exposure to ubiquitous, mostly harmless micro-organisms in soil and food and on our skin, our doorknobs, our telephones and our iPod earbuds.” Have there been studies on the effects of being too clean? Will short term fear (e.g., Covid-19) hurt us in the long term?
- downerending 7y agoI'm thinking Bloom Filters.
- andi999 7y agoCan anybody recommenf two good books on immunology? One clear introductory and one rearch level detailed?
- Cosi1125 7y agoI can only recommend one, but very good: How the Immune System Works by Lauren Sompayrac https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/940153.How_the_Immune_System_Works https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/940153.How_the_Immune_Sy...
- hajderr 7y agoHow is this relevant? I'm not into this field. The article is only from 2013. So I can only relate it to Covid-19. Thankful for any response
- shireboy 7y agoHow on earth do they know for sure someone has never been exposed to a germ? Couldn’t it just be the antibodies were from very limited exposure?
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]