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. 2023 Oct 26;19(3):2267295. doi: 10.1080/21645515.2023.2267295

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© 2023 The Author(s). Published with license by Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.

This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. The terms on which this article has been published allow the posting of the Accepted Manuscript in a repository by the author(s) or with their consent.

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Figure 1. — The immune system encompasses a unique population of cells and proteins that work together to protect the body from non-self-entities. The immune system in simple terms has two lines of defense: innate and adaptive immunity. The immune system has two basic lines of defense: innate and adaptive immunity. Innate immunity is antigen dependent, involving recognition of a non-self-antigen determined via unique structural or functional features of infectious agents. After recognition, the innate cells will initiate cytokine production to recruit more specific innate cells or initiate the antigen dependent adaptive immune system. Second order cytokines are produced from this interaction like IFN-γ leading to effector function like phagocytosis of the pathogen. Innate and adaptive immunity do not operate as separate mechanisms of host defense but rather complement each other.