INNATE IMMUNITY - IMPACT ON THE ADAPTIVE IMMUNE-RESPONSE

For many years, innate immunity has been considered as a separate enti ty from the adaptive immune response and has been regarded to beef sec ondary importance in the hierarchy of immune functions. For the past f ew years, however, interest in innate immunity has grown enormously, s o that now it is studied intensively in many laboratories that seek to integrate these two distinct types of immune function. Our intent in this review is to point out the similarities and differences in these two types of host response to infection, and to indicate our present l evel of understanding of how these can be integrated into a more compl ete description of the immune response.