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Article: Immunology: Animal Models
- Article from:
- Encyclopedia of Aging
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CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2002 The Gale Group Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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IMMUNOLOGY: ANIMAL MODELS
Observations in animal models have substantially advanced our knowledge of immune system adaptation, changes during the aging process, and age-associated degenerative diseases with autoimmune characteristics.
Animal models of immune adaptation
Animal models provided early proof that discrimination of
self
(that which the immune system identifies as belonging to the body) and
nonself
(that which the immune system identifies as foreign to the body) is determined not entirely at conception, but, to a large extent, during early fetal development by a process called
immune adaptation.
In 1945, Ray D. Owen reported that nonidentical cattle-twin embryos frequently ...