Your immune system helps protect you from infection by invading bacteria and viruses, parasites, worms and a variety of other infectious agents. The system depends upon organs and cells, but also upon many different proteins that work with the cells to produce the immune response. Despite this, you don't need to eat specific proteins to promote immune function.
Antibodies
Antibodies are proteins that are essential to a kind of immune function called acquired immunity. As opposed to innate immunity, which is non-specific and can attack pathogens of any kind, acquired immunity requires you to have been exposed to an invader before your immune system knows to attack it. Antibodies are proteins that mark invaders for destruction by killer cells, explains Dr. Lauralee Sherwood in her book "Human Physiology."
MHC
Major histocompatibility complexes are also proteins your immune system uses, but unlike antibodies, they don't travel in your bloodstream and mark invaders. Instead, they're proteins expressed on the surface of cells, explain Drs. Thomas Pollard and William Earnshaw in their book "Cell Biology." They display proteins made inside the cells, which allows the immune system to monitor what each cell is up to -- and alerts the immune system if a cell has been taken over by a pathogen.
CD3
T-cell co-receptor CD3 is a protein with an interesting and different role in the immune system. In addition to helping to activate immune cells called T lymphocytes, they also have roles in helping to improve brain function, explains an article published on the website Science Daily. Researchers have found that CD3 proteins help to monitor the brain for bad neural connections, which they destroy. This optimizes and improves brain function.
Food Concerns
The same foods that support normal healthy function in the rest of the body support normal immune function. While your immune system does require that you eat sufficient protein, the rest of your cells do as well -- the immune system doesn't have any particularly high needs in this regard. As such, a normal balanced diet suffices in maintaining immune function.
References
- "Human Physiology"; Lauralee Sherwood, Ph.D.; 2004
- "Cell Biology"; Thomas Pollard, M.D. and William Earnshaw, Ph.D.; 2007
- ScienceDaily.com: CD3 Proteins
