When it comes to the immune system of newborns, many believe that their immune cells are weak, and therefore infants are more susceptible to infections, according to an online edition for girls and women aged 14 to 35 Pannochka. net But in fact everything is not so simple.
A new study conducted by staff at Cornell University in New York suggests that the newborn's immune system is stronger than in adults, and the problem is only in its "short memory".
A research team led by Brian Rudd, an employee of the Cornell College of Veterinary Medicine, published its findings in the latest issue of the Journal of Immunology.
The immune system consists of a complex network of cells, tissues and organs that work together to protect the body from pathogens, such as bacteria and viruses. It is well known that in the first months of a child's life his immune system is unable to effectively resist infections, as it is every day the immune system of an adult person. But the reasons were not completely understood.
In the opinion of Rudd's team, the strength of each person's immune system depends on the capabilities of his "memory T-cells". These T cells at the molecular level remember pathogens that were previously in contact, so the next time the immune system responds to their intrusion quickly and effectively.
An adult during the infectious disease period synthesizes a large number of "memory T-cells". Approximately 10% of them remain in the body for a long time, forming what scientists call a "long-lived pool of memory cells". They are always ready to help the immune system in case of repeated contact with the pathogen.
T-cells of newborns do not form a "pool of memory".
The results of the study did not confirm that the same process occurs in the immune system of newborns. When an adult and a child's immune system is stimulated with the same pathogen, in newborns it creates new T cells faster, reacts faster and stronger to infection. But these cells live less and do not form a "pool of memory".
The team of scientists is confident that this discovery will help improve the immunization of young children and better protect them from common infectious diseases.
Rudd says: "Because of the lack of such a pool, the newborn's immune system must learn again and again to confront the same pathogen. A perfect vaccine would be one dose of antigen that would form a child's long-term immune defense. But there is no such vaccine, because we did not understand this mechanism. Our discovery can change the way children are immunized and lead to more effective prevention of infections ".
The researcher adds that in the near future they hope to carry out further work in this direction that will help improve modern vaccines.
Alternative look.
Last year, a medical publication Medical News Today reported on the work carried out by employees of the Medical Center "Children's Hospital of Cincinnati". The researchers then suggested that immunosuppressive cells could be the cause of the vulnerability of newborn infants to infectious diseases.
For their research, scientists extracted the immune cells of adult mice and transplanted them to newborn rodents to find out how in the young organism they would react to infection.
The team found that adult mouse cells in newborn relatives did not produce protective immune cytokines, so they did not strengthen the immune system. At the same time, transplantation of immune cells from newborn mice to adults led to the development of protective cytokines, TNF-alpha. That is, the environment in which the cells were transferred.
"Our results suggest that the fundamental differences in the immune system of newborn mice are caused by active immunosuppression during development, not by the immaturity of immune cells," wrote the author of the study Sing Sing Way.
medbe. en.