Quality control in the immune system
Research report (imported) 2004 - Max Planck Institute of Immunobiology and Epigenetics
Summary
How does the immune system avoid self-destruction and the devastating effects of autoimmunity that Paul Ehrlich described as “horror autotoxicus“? How did early vertebrates survive when they began to use receptors with random antigen specificities despite their extensive self-reactivity? It appears that the quality control mechanisms taming self-reactivity in the immune system were derived from an ancient mechanism that guided sexualselection on the basis of evaluating genetic diversity.