196

14

The Nature of Living Things

yielding upper Y equals 2,642Y = 2,642 with a standard deviation of 44. Following the same procedure

as before (except that now the equation has to be solved numerically), we find lamda prime equals 1.0117λ^' =

1.0117, i.e. Delta upper X equals 117/\X = 117 antigens. Hence, although each individual receptor needs

more antigens to trigger a response, in the presence of a large background the antibody

can detect a smaller increment of signal.

The immunome is a word used to mean the entire collection of molecules, cells,

and pathways involved in the immune system; it comprises the molecules and cells

involved in the initial recognition and activation of the immune response, as well

as the pathways and networks that regulate these processes. Hence, it also includes

the receptors, ligands, and other molecules involved in the signalling pathways that

control the immune response. Immunomics could be viewed as a branch of sys-

tems biology that studies the interactions between the immunome and the environ-

ment. ⁴³ Experimentally, it makes use of the same high-throughput technologies of

genomics, transcriptomics, and proteomics (Chaps. 17 and 18) to identify and anal-

yse the molecules, pathways, and networks that are involved in the immune response.

This approach is used to understand the mechanisms underlying diseases, as well

as to develop new treatments, diagnostics, and vaccines. Immunoinformatics is a

branch of bioinformatics that deals with the application of computational methods

and algorithms to analyse and interpret immunological data. ⁴⁴

14.7

Molecular Mechanisms

In this section, DNA replication and recombination will be examined from the molec-

ular viewpoint. The reader may find it useful to refer to Chap. 15 for complementary

information.

14.7.1

Replication

The molecular mechanism of DNA replication is summarized in Table 14.4. Some of

the typical errors—leading to single point mutations—that can occur are summarized

in Table 14.5.

14.7.2

Proofreading and Repair

Many proteins are involved in the repair of mismatched, and breaks in, DNA. Repair

takes place after replication, but before transcription. As with Hamming’s error-

43 Flower et al. (2010).

44 Schönbach et al. (2008).