What are the chemical barriers in the immune system?
Chemical barriers, related to human immunology, are fatty acids, proteins, body secretions and other substances with natural attributes that help prevent the body from disease or infection. Such substances may have antimicrobial properties, low pH or serve to decay or destabilize bacterial cells. Most of these barriers are not designed as the defense of the primary immune system, but rather have such properties as secondary functions. Few people exist only as a defensive mechanism for the immune system. As for the categorization of chemical barriers, such mechanisms are congenital, passive and belongs to the title of anatomical barriers.
As part of a congenital immune system, such barriers are built at birth. In other words, the body does not have to adapt the immune system to fight it with infections using these barriers because they are present before the first day of the individual's life. Categorization of chemical barriers as passive suggests that the help of the immune system is a cutndar function. As anatomical barriers, they are present outside the body tissues than at a cellular level.
proteins, acid, secretion and enzymes that form chemical barriers are created to perform specific primary tasks within normal or involuntary body functions. For example, the body produces sweat as part of its natural cooling system. Sweating is also a passive barrier to the human immune system because its low pH inhibits bacterial growth.
Other defense include saliva, tears and nasal secretions. These substances contain both lysozy and phospholipase, substances that naturally decompose the outer wall and cell membranes of bacterial cellulse. The primary purpose of saliva is to help digestion, where tears and secretion of the nose help to rinse foreign substances and maintain moist body membranes. The fact that these chemicals also have a negative effect on threatening bacteria is more sidea width of effect than the primary function.
Internal chemical barriers also protect against infection if bacteria or other threats were entered into internal systems or organs. The proteins in the lungs and the gastrointestinal tract known as defensins have antimicrobial properties that kill certain types of bacteria. Other gastrointestinal chemicals competitions with infectious cells on nutrients or are connected to cell walls, starving harmful or threatening cells. Like fatty acids in sweat, gastrointestinal chemicals also have low pH, which further inhibits the growth of harmful bacteria inside the body.