The Semiotics of Cellular Communication in the Immune System (Nato ASI Subseries H: (23))

This volume contains the contributions to the workshop "The Semiotics of Cellular Communication in The Immune System" which took place at "11 Ciocco" in the hills north of Lucca, Italy, September ~-12, 1986. The workshop was the first meeting of what we hope will be a broad consideration of communication among lymphocytes, and focused on the new interdisciplinary branch of biological sciences, immunosemiotics. It is in the realm of the possible, if not the probable, that in the future a number of scientists larger than the thirty present at 11 Ciocco will find immunosemiotics to fill a need in scientific thinking and a gap between biology and the humanities. This might lead to growth and flourishing of the branch, and in this case the first conference and this first book could be blessed by the impalpable qual ity of becoming "historical", if in an admittedly 1 imited sense. Just in case this should happen the organizers/editors think it wise to set the record straight at this particular time, about the sequen~e of events and circumstances that crystallized the archeology of the "11 Liocco" gathering. They feel a sort of obligation to this endeavor: it has happened all too often that innocent historians have been left in utter confusion by the careless founders of new religions, schisms, revolutions, et cetera, who simply forget to jot down the facts before the whirlwind of time engulfs them in its fog. Front Matter....Pages I-XI On Semiotics and Immunology....Pages 3-15 A Nonrestrictive Semiotics of the Immune System....Pages 17-23 Possible contribution of biosemiotics to the problem of communication among lymphocyts....Pages 25-33 A Note on Some Basic Concepts of the Sign....Pages 35-39 Introduction to Terms Relevant to Immunological Recognition....Pages 41-50 Signs and Codes in Immunology....Pages 53-64 Semiosis for the Immune System but not the Immune Response or What can be Learned about Language by Studying the Immune System?....Pages 65-69 Does the Human Mind Use a Logic of Signs Developed by Lymphocytes 10 8 Years Ago?....Pages 71-79 Contexts in the cellular communications: How the mobile cells recognize right partner cells to talk with?....Pages 83-104 Structure and Direction of Message in the Immune Network and Circuits....Pages 105-117 Modes of Communication Within the Immune System: Action or Reaction?....Pages 119-129 Of Words, Genes and Music....Pages 131-147 Structural Coupling and the Origin of Meaning in a Simple Cellular Automation....Pages 151-161 The Control of T Lymphocyte Activity May Involve Elements of Semiosis....Pages 163-168 Digital Processing and Immuno-Regulatory Circuits....Pages 169-170 Observer, Immune System and their Respective Objects (About Self — Non-Self Discrimination)....Pages 173-181 General Principles of Complex Biological Systems Operating in Immunology. Self-Responses Might Define the Boundaries of the Developing Immune System....Pages 183-191 Towards Cognitive Immunology : G.O.D. is Infinite....Pages 193-198 Parasites and the Immune Response: Crossing the Signals....Pages 199-206 Grammars, Machines, and Immunoregulatory Cell Interactions. An Exercise in Immunosemiotics....Pages 209-218 Is there a Unique Language in the Immunoregulatory System?....Pages 219-231 Recognition of Syngeneic forms of L-Chain V-Region Peptides by T Helper Cells Suggests that B Cell Antigen Receptors are Processed and Reutilized in Cognate T-B Interaction....Pages 233-243 Regulatory T Cell Function, Antigen Recognition, and an Immunological Decision Point....Pages 245-256 On I-J, a Network Centre Pole and AIDS....Pages 257-271 Immune Suppression: An Integral Property of the Immune System?....Pages 273-280 Signs and Meaning in the Study of the Immune and Higher Nervous Systems....Pages 281-303 Immunosemiotics: Whither the Immune Response? Factors Directing the Response to Humoral or Cell-Mediated Immunity....Pages 305-308 Immunoschismatics: Who is Guilty of Original Antigenic Sin?....Pages 309-313 Epitypic-Idiotypic Dominance as An Evolutionary Answer to the Intercellular Communication Problem....Pages 315-326 Back Matter....Pages 327-338 This book introduces into a newly developing branch of biology, the semiotics of cellular communication. The number of known cell subpopulations of lymphocytes, their mediators and receptors has increased tremendously in recent years. An intercellular web of recognition and, in turn, activation or depression of various cellular functions joins all lymphocytes. This interaction of a particular lymphocyte in one subpopulation with the appropriate partner from another subpopulation for regulatory or cooperative purposes requires an efficient and unambiguous system of intercellular recognition and pairing, involving the perception of specific signs by each of the cellular participants