immune system - Activation of T and B lymphocytes

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Activation of T and B lymphocytes

Helper T cells become activated by interacting with antigen-presenting cells, such as macrophages. Antigen-presenting cells ingest a microbe, partially degrade it, and export fragments of the microbe—i.e., antigens—to the cell surface, where they are presented in association with class II MHC molecules.

https://www.britannica.com/science/immu ... ymphocytes

“In its lifetime a lymphocyte may or may not come into contact with the antigen it is capable of recognizing, but if it does it can be activated to multiply into a large number of identical cells, called a clone. Each member of the clone carries the same antigen receptor and hence has the same antigen specificity as the original lymphocyte. The process, called clonal selection, is one of the fundamental concepts of immunology.

Two types of cells are produced by clonal selection—effector cells and memory cells. Effector cells are the relatively short-lived activated cells that defend the body in an immune response. Effector B cells are called plasma cells and secrete antibodies, and activated T cells include cytotoxic T cells and helper T cells, which carry out cell-mediated responses.

The production of effector cells in response to first-time exposure to an antigen is called the primary immune response. Memory cells are also produced at this time, but they do not become active at this point. However, if the organism is reexposed to the same antigen that stimulated their formation, the body mounts a second immune response that is led by these long-lasting memory cells, which then give rise to another population of identical effector and memory cells. This secondary mechanism is known as immunological memory, and it is responsible for the lifetime immunities to diseases such as measles that arise from childhood exposure to the causative pathogen.“

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“A lymphocyte is a type of white blood cell in the immune system of most vertebrates. Lymphocytes include natural killer cells, T cells, and B cells. They are the main type of cell found in lymph, which prompted the name "lymphocyte". Lymphocytes make up between 18% and 42% of circulating white blood cells. Wikipedia”