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Antigen presentation is a vital immune process that is essential for T cell immune response triggering. Because T cells recognize only fragmented antigens displayed on cell surfaces , antigen processing must occur before the antigen fragment can be recognized by a T-cell receptor .
Antigen presentation stimulates immature T cells to become either mature "cytotoxic" CD8+ cells or mature "helper" CD4+ cells. An antigen-presenting cell (APC) or accessory cell is a cell that displays an antigen bound by major histocompatibility complex (MHC) proteins on its surface; this process is known as antigen presentation.
Once the exogenous antigen peptide is loaded onto the MHC class I molecule, the complex is exported to the cell surface for antigen cross presentation. There is also evidence that suggest that cross-presentation requires a separate pathway in a proportion of CD8(+) dendritic cells that are able to cross-present.
Antigen processing, or the cytosolic pathway, is an immunological process that prepares antigens for presentation to special cells of the immune system called T lymphocytes. It is considered to be a stage of antigen presentation pathways.
MHC-restricted antigen recognition, or MHC restriction, refers to the fact that a T cell can interact with a self-major histocompatibility complex molecule and a foreign peptide bound to it, but will only respond to the antigen when it is bound to a particular MHC molecule.
After the processed antigen (peptide) is complexed to the MHC molecule, they both migrate together to the cell membrane, where they are exhibited (elaborated) as a complex that can be recognized by the CD 4+ (T helper cell) – a type of white blood cell. [note 7] [20] This is known as antigen presentation.
Immunological memory is the ability of the immune system to quickly and specifically recognize an antigen that the body has previously encountered and initiate a corresponding immune response. Generally, they are secondary, tertiary and other subsequent immune responses to the same antigen.
When the antigen is originally introduced, the organism does not have any receptors for the antigen so it must generate them from the first time the antigen is present. The immune system then builds a memory of that antigen, which enables it to recognize the antigen quicker in the future and be able to combat it quicker and more efficiently.