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What are 2 vaccines that have toxoid components?
The tetanus and diphtheria components of the DTaP and Tdap vaccines
What are pharmacological additives that enhance the body’s natural immune response to an antigen?
Adjuvant
What disease is showing the strongest reemergence in the US and UK due to declining vaccination rates?
Measles
Currently, the majority of DNA vaccines being developed focus which two diseases/infections?
HIV or cancer
What type of tool is CRISPR-Cas9?
A gene-editing tool
What does the abbreviation PCR stand for?
Polymerase chain reaction
In general, what do microarray assays investigate?
Differences between healthy and diseased cells
What does a direct ELISA detect in a patient’s serum?
Antigens or antibodies in a sample
What type of serological test is used for blood typing and confirming a syphilis diagnosis?
Treponema pallidum particle agglutination assay (TPPA) test
Vaccines induce which type of immunity?
Artificially acquired active immunity
What special piece of equipment is required for flow cytometry?
Fluorescence-activated cell sorter (FACS)
What are live attenuated vaccines?
Vaccines contain active agents that have been weakened
1. In the 20th century, smallpox was eradicated. What is the next disease targeted for eradication?
2. Why might this be difficult to achieve?
1. Polio
2. Because it’s found in only humans
1. What is RT-PCR?
2. What does it detect?
1. Another form of PCR that is useful for detecting RNA in a sample—such as the genome of an RNA virus; in RT-PCR, the enzyme reverse transcriptase is used in conjunction with primers to build DNA that is complementary to RNA molecules in a sample
2. RNA in a sample
What is transformation?
A process by which cells take up DNA from their environment
What is gene therapy?
The process of introducing genetic material that is not a human cell as a treatment
What does the CRISPR part of CRISPR-Cas9 do?
The CRISPR part of the system includes a guide RNA that acts like a molecular GPS for finding the desired genetic sequence that is to be cut out—the guide RNA nucleotide sequence is complementary to the target DNA nucleotide sequence
What is gel electrophoresis used for?
Method used to separate molecules (especially nucleic acids and proteins) based on their size
What is a plaque?
Areas that develop in a lawn of cultured cells as the cells are infected and lysed by a virus
What are inactivated vaccines?
Vaccines that consist of whole inactivated pathogens, such as killed bacteria or inactivated viruses, or parts of pathogens
What must be stimulated for a vaccine to be considered effective?
Vaccines must stimulate immunological memory without causing the disease they aim to prevent
What are conjugate vaccines? What two molecules are usually conjugated? Why must this be done?
Also called polysaccharide vaccines; these vaccines are created by linking polysaccharides to a protein antigen to stimulate an immune response in a vaccinated patient
What are 3 drawbacks of live attenuated vaccines?
- the agents in them could cause disease in an immune-compromised host
- sporadically, the live attenuated pathogen can mutate to an infectious form and cause disease
- can also potentially transmit other infectious agents, such as other viruses, if the tissue culture is contaminated
What is Taq polymerase?
An enzyme from the hot springs bacterium Thermus aquaticus; used as a heat-resistant DNA polymerase in polymerase chain reaction methods
What are two advantages that inactivated vaccines have over live attenuated vaccines?
- Can consist of whole inactivated pathogens, such as killed bacteria or inactivated viruses, or parts of pathogens
- Many inactivated vaccines are stable at room temperature, which makes them easy to ship and store, plus their noninfectious nature means they are safe for immune-compromised patients
1. What was Edward Jenner’s contribution to science?
2. What pathogen was involved?
1. He contributed vaccination to science
2. In 1796, the British physician Edward Jenner created a new method of purposely infecting people with pathogens to spur immunity. He noticed that milkmaids weren’t affected by smallpox epidemics like the rest of the population. Upon investigation, he learned that most of them contracted cowpox, a less severe and nonfatal bovine version of the disease
What are the steps of plaque reduction neutralization tests (PRNT)?
1. Draw blood and isolate serum
2. Virus is added to series of serum dilutions, if antibodies against virus are present they coat virus and limit infectivity
3. Virus/serum mixture is added to cultured cells and incubated
4. Observe incubated plate
What was the Chinese procedure called variolation? What pathogen were the practitioners trying to gain protection from?
Procedure that originated in China in the 1400s to combat smallpox; in this procedure, the practitioner blew a powder made from the dried scabs of smallpox lesions into a healthy individual’s nose; the resulting smallpox infections tended to be milder—with only a 1–2 percent mortality rate compared to the 30 percent mortality associated with naturally acquired infections.
What is immunofluorescence microscopy?
a protocol in which fluorescent-tagged antibodies that recognize a specific antigen are incubated with tissue or cell samples, after which the sample is observed with a specialized microscope
What are IGRAs?
Fast and relatively reliable way to detect tuberculosis (TB) in the early stages in vaccinated populations; IGRAs work by measuring how a patient’s T cells respond to Mycobacterium tuberculosis antigens; T cells from a person who has TB (either a latent or an active infection) release more interferon gamma (INF-g) T cells from someone who does not have TB