What is immunological tolerance and why is it importantSolut

What is immunological tolerance and why is it important?

Solution

Immunological Tolerance: Immunological tolerance is a state of unresponsiveness or failure to mount an immune response to an antigen. It is induced by prior exposure to that antigen or natural tolerance. Such as:

The mechanisms that are involved in induction and maintenance of tolerance are clonal deletion, clonal anergy, receptor editing, receptor downmodulation and lymphocyte sequestration. The number of antigen presenting cells, the number and activity of regulatory T cells and regulatory B cells, the nature and amount of antigenic peptides generated and the presence of costimulatory signals in a particular tissue are also important. Depending on the site and the level of antigen expression, different states of peripheral Bcell and Tcell tolerance can be reached.

Importance of Immunological Tolerance:

Induced tolerance may be exploited clinically to prevent rejection of foreign transplants and to manipulate autoimmune and allergic diseases.

Immunological Tolerance to self antigens can be maintained by immune regulation such as Self-reactive cells may under certain conditions be deleted or rendered unable to respond.

B-cell deletion takes place in both bone marrow and peripheral lymphoid organs and high proportion of short-lived, autoreactive B cells appear in peripheral lymphoid organs then these cells are recruited to fight against infection.