Despite what gets talked about during flu vaccination season, the antibody isn’t the only kind of immune cell that works against infection and disease. Indeed, non-specific immune cells probably do much more work than antibodies, which are engineered to respond only to one specific pathogen. The non-specific cells, on the other hand, are there when the general innate immune system kicks in, and they’re still at work when the more specific adaptive immune system, the level where the antibodies are created, becomes involved. These cells never seem to get any time off.
The reason why this type of immune cell is called “non-specific” is that it isn’t like an antibody, engineered to react only to one particular kind of pathogen. These more generalized immune cells can react to many different kinds. When immune signals are sent through the system to warn of an invader, these cells arrive at the site and engulf and destroy invading cells. The name of these defensive cells is phagocytes, which actually means to “eat cells.”
But certain phagocytes do much more than just that, which is where this kind of immune cell becomes involved in the next level of the immune system as well, the adaptive system. Two kinds of phagocytes, the macrophages and dendritic cells, bring parts of the pathogens back to their own surfaces, and “present” them to lymphocytes, which are the main creators of antibodies. So even though these non-specific cells start out in the more general innate immunity level of the body’s response, they are crucial to the adaptive level as well. Without them, antibodies wouldn’t be created.
The dendritic immune cell doesn’t just help lymphocytes in the lymph nodes form the antibodies designed to combat the type of pathogen it’s carrying. It can also kill those same lymphocytes if they get carried away and attack it, thinking that the dendritic cell itself is an enemy because they can detect the dead pathogen inside it. The dendritic cell may not be able to prevent all autoimmune diseases, but this is one autoimmune response it can definitely nip in the bud. This and all the other non-specific immune cells are constantly at work, trying not just to protect the body from pathogens, but sometimes also from itself.
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