Swiatczak Bartlomiej
Department of History of Science, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, People's Republic of China.
J Hist Biol. 2014 Fall;47(3):411-42.
It has long been taken for granted that the immune system’s capacity to protect an individual from infection and disease depends on the power of the system to distinguish between self and nonself. However, accumulating data have undermined this fundamental concept. Evidence against the self/nonself discrimination model left researchers in need of a new overarching framework able to capture the immune system’s reactivity. Here, I highlight that along with the self/nonself model, another powerful representation of the immune system’s reactivity has been developed in the twentieth century immunology. According to this alternative view, the immune system is not a killer of nonself strangers but a peace-maker helping to establish harmony with the environment. The balance view of the system has never become part of the dominant paradigm. However, it is gaining more and more currency as new research develops. Advances in mucosal immunology confirm that instead of distinguishing between self and foreign the immune system reacts to microbial, chemical and self-induced alterations to produce responses that counterbalance effects of these changes.
长期以来，人们一直理所当然地认为，免疫系统保护个体免受感染和疾病侵害的能力取决于该系统区分自我与非自我的能力。然而，越来越多的数据削弱了这一基本概念。反对自我/非自我区分模型的证据使研究人员需要一个新的总体框架来描述免疫系统的反应性。在此，我强调，在20世纪免疫学中，除了自我/非自我模型之外，还形成了另一种强大的免疫系统反应性的表征。根据这种不同的观点，免疫系统不是非自我外来者的杀手，而是一个有助于与环境建立和谐关系的和平缔造者。该系统的平衡观点从未成为主导范式的一部分。然而，随着新研究的开展，它越来越流行。黏膜免疫学的进展证实，免疫系统并非区分自我与外来物质，而是对微生物、化学物质以及自身引发的变化做出反应，以产生能够抵消这些变化影响的反应。
