From Book News, Inc.
Innate immunity is the first-line defense by which a host limits infection in the first hours after being exposed to microorganisms. Recent investigation has found similarities between the pathogen recognition, signaling pathways, and effector mechanisms related to such defense among flowering plants, insects, and mammals, suggesting that the fundamentals have been inherited and adapted from early evolutionary times. Researchers from the US, Europe, and Japan explore host interactions between hosts and pathogens across an evolutionary spectrum in order to cast light on those in humans. After looking at plant immunity and invertebrate defense immunity, they focus on mammals with discussions of pattern recognition receptors and links between innate and adaptive immunity.Copyright 2004 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Book Info
Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA. Features a review of the innate immune system in plants, insects, and mammals, a discussion of the function of pattern recognition molecules in first-line host defense, new methods to explore and discover potential therapies, and the links between innate and adaptive immunity. DNLM: Immunity, Natural--physiology.