Further notes about the morphostasis concept – split files

(51) "There is – arguably – no such thing as an immune system . . . .

I think I need to make it clear what I meant in this statement as several groups seem to have seized on this to support their personal viewpoints without clearly grasping my meaning. The conventional view of the immune system (and especially the adaptive immune system) is that it is a dedicated microbe hunting and killing system. My opinion is that the immune system is overwhelmingly dedicated to noticing and responding to pathogenic stimuli (tissue disruptions). If you are an animal that predates on another animal that you use for food (nutritional and energy resources) then it is hard to imagine how this predation can be carried out without you damaging the animal that you are eating. The damage is pretty obvious. Most bacteria living around animal bodies are opportunistic heterotrophs – they feast on dead/dying/decaying organic matter; they are detritophiles. Most are polite and wait their turn; and they do an important and essential job in keeping the local (and cycling) ecosystem healthy. A small group of bacteria, however, will not patiently wait their turn. They create foci of damage and premature decay within their targeted host. They are pathogens; this word means nothing BUT that they are agents that damage tissues. Impact injuries, radiation injuries, pathogenic microorganism injuries, asbestos provoked inflammation and many more are all pathogenic stimuli. Hence, when a particular agent can be identified as the cause of the damage, it can be honoured with the title "pathogen". Pathogen says nothing about the living state or microorganismal properties of the agent. It simply reflects the point that it has damaged tissues. Our "immune system" is really a morphostatic/tissue homeostatic/integrity protecting system. It is constantly identifying the debris provoked by pathogenic (and not so pathogenic) stimuli and processing this ready for presentation to anamnestic ("memorising") immune cells. The context of the presentation of this debris is thus remembered so that the intensity of the response can be ramped up (if the previous encounter was "messy") whenever it is re–encountered. The "attack" is a mindless ramping up of the inflammatory response in the vicinity of this re–encounter of previously classified debris. The conventional view is completely blinkered by the belief that it mounts purposeful attacks on micro–organisms. It simply classifies what was previously damaging as probably dangerous and in need of extra aggressive attention. The capacity of various cells to "eat" micro–organisms (as a nutritional resource) is an anciently aquired food acquisition strategy that is exaggerated in various phagocytes. "No such thing as an immune system" is simply a provocative statement to emphasise that the adaptive immune system does not remember micro–organisms: it just remembers debris patterns found in damaged tissues. This, of course, includes debris from the micro–organisms but the "goal" is to enhance an innate (inflammatory) response at the point of damage re–encounter.