Preface

This book is an effort to reflect on the new advances in our understanding of the immune system, immune response activation, as well as immunomodulation, and to improve upon the presentation of information to students, teachers, and researchers. As teachers of immunology, we are becoming increasingly aware that assimilating detailed information as well as experimental approaches is difficult in many medical school and undergraduate courses. The problem of how much detail is appropriate has become a pressing issue because of the continuous and rapid increase in the amount of information in biomedical sciences. This problem is compounded by the development of integrated curricula in many medical schools, with reduced time for didactic teaching and an increasing emphasis on social and behavioural sciences and primary health. For all these reasons, we have realized the value for many medical students of presenting the principles of immunology in a concise and clear manner.

This book has been written to address the perceived needs of both medical school and undergraduate curricula and to take advantage of new understandings in immunology. We have tried to achieve several goals and present the most important principles governing the function of the immune system. Our fundamental objective has been to synthesize the key concepts from the vast amount of experimental data that have emerged in the rapidly advancing field of immunology. The choice of what is most important is based on what is most clearly established by experimentation, what our students find puzzling, and what explains the wonderful efficiency and economy of the immune system. Inevitably, however, such a choice will have an element of bias, and our bias is toward emphasizing the cellular interactions in the immune response by limiting the description of many of the underlying biochemical and molecular mechanisms to the essential facts. This book gives an insight into the role of cytokines in activating immune response during a pathogenic invasion. Immunomodulation, aryl hydrocarbons, the role of the protein defensin and nucleated cells in provoking the immune response, Bcl protein/gene-based apoptotic pathways, and plant-derived phytochemical-mediated immune response are all central themes of the book.

In essence, I very strongly believe that the content of this book will be helpful to those working on the immunology of infectious diseases and beyond.

**II**

**Chapter 7 127**

**Chapter 8 151**

Current State of the Art in DNA Vaccine Delivery and Molecular Adjuvants:

Role of Aryl Hydrocarbon-Ligands in the Regulation of Autoimmunity

Bcl-xL Anti-Apoptotic Protein as a Molecular Adjuvant

*by Sultan Gulce-Iz and Pelin Saglam-Metiner*

*by Hana'a Burezq*

**Rajeev K. Tyagi, PhD** Department of Medicine, Division of Gastroenterology, Hepatology and Nutrition Vanderbilt University Medical Centre (VUMC), Nashville, USA
