Decades of discovery have led immunologists to compartmentalize the mammalian immune
system into two components: innate and adaptive immunity. The textbooks and traditional …

Conventionally, it was thought that innate immunity operated through a simple system of
nonspecific responses to an insult. However, this perspective now seems overly simplistic. It …

Coordination of the innate and adaptive immune systems is paramount to the development
of protective humoral and cellular immunity following vaccination. Natural killer (NK) cells …

Highlights•In recent years, the ability to form immunological memory has been described in
many taxa, including plants, invertebrates, and vertebrates.•Innate immune and non-immune …

Immunological memory is the underlying mechanism by which the immune system
remembers previous encounters with pathogens to produce an enhanced secondary …

The current issue of the Journal of Innate Immunity presents a series of studies that shed
additional light on important aspects of the adaptive properties of innate immunity. One of …

BACKGROUND Host immune responses are classically divided into innate immune
responses, which react rapidly and nonspecifically upon encountering a pathogen, and …

Natural killer (NK) cells are cytotoxic innate lymphocytes with key roles in host protection
against viruses and malignancy. Notwithstanding their historical classification as innate …

Since their discovery three decades ago, NK cells have been classified as cells of the innate
immune system. NK cells were shown to respond rapidly and non‐specifically to infection …

Highlights•Organisms lacking an adaptive immune system can mount resistance to
secondary infections.•NK cells and monocytes have adaptive (memory) characteristics.• …