Biology is designed for multi-semester biology courses for science majors. It is grounded on an evolutionary basis and includes exciting features that highlight careers in the biological sciences and everyday applications of the concepts at hand. To meet the needs of today’s instructors and students, some content has been strategically condensed while maintaining the overall scope and coverage of traditional texts for this course. Instructors can customize the book, adapting it to the approach that works best in their classroom. Biology also includes an innovative art program that incorporates critical thinking and clicker questions to help students understand—and apply—key concepts.

By the end of this section, you will be able to:Describe physical and chemical immune barriersExplain immediate and induced innate immune responsesDiscuss natural killer cellsDescribe major histocompatibility class I moleculesSummarize how the proteins in a complement system function to destroy extracellular pathogens

This presentations discuss diabetes as an disease of the pancreatic beta cell, in continuation of this, we’ll discuss what causes beta cell failure in type 1 and type 2 diabetes. Furthermore we’ll discuss the innate immune system and the beta cell failure, and inflammatory mediators as therapeutic targets of type 1 and type 2 diabetes.

Course responsible: Associate Professor Signe Sørensen Torekov, MD Nicolai Wewer Albrechtsen & Professor Jens Juul Holst

This resource is a video abstract of a research paper created by Research Square on behalf of its authors. It provides a synopsis that's easy to understand, and can be used to introduce the topics it covers to students, researchers, and the general public. The video's transcript is also provided in full, with a portion provided below for preview:

"The symbiotic microbial community that many animals have floating freely in their gut is critical to their health and well-being. But some insects, like cereal weevils, take this a step further and host bacteria inside their own cells. These endosymbiotic bacteria reside in massive, specialized cells organized in an organ called the bacteriome. Previous studies have suggested that the cereal weevil bacteriome participates in immune responses. But how, or if, the bacteriome protects its resident bacteria from that immune activity remains unclear. To answer this, researchers activated the cereal weevil innate immune system with pathogen protein fragments and examined the gene expression changes in the bacteriome and its residents. Rather than differentiate between pathogens and symbionts, the cereal weevils protected their endosymbionts with physical separation..."

The rest of the transcript, along with a link to the research itself, is available on the resource itself.

Lysozyme is one of the major bactericidal agents in secretions and particularly helps to protect vulnerable sites such as the eyes and nasal passages. The lysoszyme exerts bactericidal effects by digesting bacterial cell walls. The complement system is a group of about 30 proteins within the body fluids of all vertebrates and some invertebrates. The main functions of complement are to promote phagocytosis or causes lysis of an invading organism.

Both the innate and adaptive immune systems use receptors to recognise foreign organisms. The innate immune system uses pattern recognition receptors which acts as an early warning system. The adaptive immune response is highly specific for each organism, as B and T cells have specialist surface immunoglobulin receptors which detect specific antigens on foreign pathogens. The Innate immune system is the body's first barrier of defence to infection. It relies on an older, more generic, and faster acting set of tools than the adaptive system. While the adaptive system is essential for a specific response to infection, it is ultimately the innate system that conquers foreign attackers through means of phagocytosis.

This resource is a video abstract of a research paper created by Research Square on behalf of its authors. It provides a synopsis that's easy to understand, and can be used to introduce the topics it covers to students, researchers, and the general public. The video's transcript is also provided in full, with a portion provided below for preview:

"The scavenger receptors (SRs) are a group of surveillance proteins that play important roles in immune defense. These proteins are divided into 12 classes (A–L) on the basis of their diverse structures and functions. Their differences enable SRs to interact with a vast array of pathogenic factors, such as bacteria, to induce appropriate responses. Multiple SR types can bind to the same pathogenic signals, and an individual SR can bind multiple signal types. Furthermore, SRs can reversibly interact with co-receptor proteins to launch various responses, highlighting the complex and dynamic nature of SR-related defense. In general, SRs control the recruitment and activation of immune cells that eat harmful substances, and they can either induce or suppress inflammation depending on the conditions. Many SRs have both membrane-bound and soluble forms that accomplish their scavenging functions, while one potential SR, ACE-2, appears to scavenge only in its soluble form..."

The rest of the transcript, along with a link to the research itself, is available on the resource itself.