What are the body's nonspecific defenses?

Answer 1

Natural immunity. For example: Your skin is a natural immunity. It is non-specific and is a barrier to the outside world.

Your body has various non-specific defenses to pathogens such as bacteria and viruses. But overall the non-specific defense system is made up of skin, epithelial tissue, and mucous membranes which are always "on" and preventing pathogenic attacks so to speak. And then you have preventative measures in your blood and in your body. This is in contrast to specific defenses which attack a certain pathogen and usually need time to activate and get up and running.

The main non-specific defenses consist of:

Lysozymes - such as teardrops which attack bacterial cell walls causing the cell to burst or lyse.

Ciliated Epithelia - which are hairlike fibers that can catch pathogens and dispose of them.

Defensins - which are proteins that have hydro-phobic "R" groups and can interfere with the shape of the bacteria causing it to lyse or disabling it's functionality.

The non-specific defenses in the bloodstream consist of:

Complement - a set of blood proteins that can interfere with a bacterial cell membrane.

Interferon - which is a protein signal released by infected cells which warns other surrounding cells of infection.

Mast Cells - which release histamine that triggers a inflammatory response causing capillaries to dilate and allowing greater circulation of white blood cells and phagocytes to an infected area.

Phagocytes - are white blood cells which detect engulf pathogens and dispose of them.

Natural Killer Cells - which detect viruses and cancer cells and attack them.

Answer 2

Natural immunity. One example is your skin. It is has natural immunity. It is non-specific and is a barrier to the outside world.

Your body has various non-specific defenses to pathogens such as bacteria and viruses. But overall the non-specific defense system is made up of skin, epithelial tissue, mucous membranes, sweat, and sebum which are always "on" and preventing pathogenic attacks so to speak. And then you have preventative measures in your blood and in your body.

This is in contrast to specific defenses which attack a certain pathogen and usually need a bit more time to activate and get up and running.

The main non-specific defenses consist of:

• Lysosomes - such as teardrops which attack bacterial cell walls causing the cell to burst or lyse.

• Ciliated Epithelium - which are hairlike fibers that can catch pathogens or move them out of the body.

• Defensins - which are proteins that have hydro-phobic "R" groups and can interfere with the shape of the bacteria causing it to lyse, or disabling its functionality.

The non-specific defenses in the bloodstream consist of:

• Complement - a set of blood proteins that can interfere with a bacterial cell membrane.

• Interferon - which is a protein signal released by infected cells which warns other surrounding cells of infection.

• Mast Cells - which release histamine that triggers a inflammatory response causing capillaries to dilate and allow a greater circulation of white blood cells and phagocytes to an infected area.

• Phagocytes - are white blood cells which detect, engulf, and dispose pathogens.

• Natural Killer Cells - which detect viruses and cancer cells and attack them.