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How did our complex immune system evolve?

Nature Reviews Immunology volume 10, pages 2–3 (2010)Cite this article

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Max Cooper and Brantley Herrin discuss the evolution of innate and alternative adaptive immune systems for defence purposes and conclude that successful vaccines and other therapeutic manipulations of the immune system will require a composite strategy.

The more we learn about our immune system, the more amazed we are by its complexity. Just when immunologists thought the basic principles for the somatic diversification of antigen receptors for B and T cells had been solved, we began to appreciate the complexity of the innate immune response, its importance as a first level of protective immunity and its role in triggering antigen-specific responses by the adaptive immune system. Perhaps if we could work out the evolutionary history of innate and adaptive immunity, this could help us to understand the intricacies of how our immune system functions and sometimes dysfunctions.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Max D. Cooper and Brantley R. Herrin are at the Emory Vaccine Center and Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, Emory University, 1462 Clifton Road, Atlanta, Georgia 30322, USA.,

    Max D. Cooper & Brantley R. Herrin

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  1. Max D. Cooper
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  2. Brantley R. Herrin
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Correspondence to Max D. Cooper.

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The authors declare no competing financial interests.

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Cooper, M., Herrin, B. How did our complex immune system evolve?. Nat Rev Immunol 10, 2–3 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1038/nri2686

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