Abstract
The primary function of the immune system in higher organisms is generally thought to be defense against microbial infection. The sites of the defensive immunological reactions are the extracellular and intracellular compartments into which microbial organisms gain entry. Immunological effector agents elaborated against foreign microbial constituents must also inevitably contact various self-constituents, thus rendering the latter vulnerable to destruction. The self-nonself discrimination problem for the immune system is compounded by the fact that the sequence of essential proteins is often highly conserved across the species.
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© 1999 Springer Science+Business Media New York
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Paul, S. (1999). Diversity of Immunological Defects in Autoimmune Diseases. In: Paul, S. (eds) Autoimmune Reactions. Contemporary Immunology. Humana Press, Totowa, NJ. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4612-1610-0_1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4612-1610-0_1
Publisher Name: Humana Press, Totowa, NJ
Print ISBN: 978-1-4612-7215-1
Online ISBN: 978-1-4612-1610-0
eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive