Tế bào lympho nhận ra kháng nguyên đặc điểm trên bề mặt của các phân tử mang kháng nguyên. Các nhà nghiên cứu trong những năm 1980 đã phát hiện nhiều chi tiết phức tạp hơn sinh học và hóa học của các thành phần hệ thống miễn dịch và cách thức mà chúng tương tác. | A. --- JL --- gen an immunologically responsive cell shown by C. S. Gowans 1923- in the 1960s to be a lymphocyte responds by multiplying and producing an identical set of plasma cells which in turn manufacture the specific antibody for that antigen. Further cellular research has shown that there are two types of lymphocytes nondescript lymph cells B-lympho-cytes which secrete antibody and T-lymphocytes which regulate the B-lymphocytes and also either kill foreign substances directly killer T cells or stimulate macrophages to do so helper T cells . Lymphocytes recognize antigens by characteristics on the surface of the antigen-carrying molecules. Researchers in the 1980s uncovered many more intricate biological and chemical details of the immune system components and the ways in which they interact. Knowledge about the immune system s role in rejection of transplanted tissue became extremely important as organ transplantation became surgically feasible. Peter Medawar s work in the 1940s showed that such rejection was an immune reaction to antigens on the foreign tissue. Donald Calne 1936- showed in 1960 that immunosuppressive drugs drugs that suppress immune responses reduced transplant rejection and these drugs were first used on human patients in 1962. In the 1940s George Snell 1903-1996 discovered in mice a group of tissue-compatibility genes the MHC that played an important role in controlling acceptance or resistance to tissue grafts. Jean Dausset found human MHC a set of antigens to human leucocytes white blood cells called HLA. Matching of HLA in donor and recipient tissue is an important technique to predict compatibility in transplants. Baruj Benacerraf in 1969 showed that an animal s ability to respond to an antigen was controlled by genes in the MHC complex. Exciting new discoveries in the study of the immune system are on the horizon. Researchers are investigating the relation of HLA to disease certain types of HLA molecules may predispose people to .
