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When foreign pathogens, such as bacteria or a virus, enter our body, our immune system responds in a concerted effort to eliminate them. B cells produce antibodies that recognize markers (called antigens) on the surface of the invaders; these antibodies are then used to tag foreign pathogens for destruction.
B cells typically require interaction with T cells for full activation and antibody production, which is critical to overcoming an infection. But there are some cases where the T cells are not required. Now, researchers have figured out how this works—and discovered that it relies on the remains of long-dead viruses that litter our genomes.
Large, repetitive sugar structures that are often found on the surface of bacteria and viruses are the key to activating antibody production without the help of a T cell. These sugary structures engage proteins called B cell receptors, which activate the B cells. B cells then grow, forming short-lived cells that produce antibodies and long-lived memory cells that will recognize the same invader upon subsequent infection
http://arstechnica.com/science/2014/12/remains-of-long-dead-viruses-in-our-genomes-aid-our-immune-response/
[Abstract]: http://www.sciencemag.org/content/192/4238/467
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Friday January 02 2015, @06:52PM
Well, it depends on what you consider the virus. The thing they're talking about is sugars found on the outside of the virus, not it's reproductive core. (I can't say DNA or RNA, because different viruses are different...so I said reproductive core.) This would be analogous to someone stealing your skin after killing you, and starting to make copies of it. You wouldn't consider that you were reproducing just because copies of your skin were being made.
(Well, actually that's not a good analogy. If the entire virus coat were embedded in the gene it would be a really poor analogy, because that's about half the virus, but this is only a piece of it's coat, so the analogy is better.)
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.