Immune response [oneshot]

[sneezysunshine]

I was supposed to study for my lectures on immunology, so naturally it ended with me writing a little piece about the infection pathway and immune system response that happens when one is infected with a cold. It almost counts as studying, right?

Anyway, I had fun writing it, so I figured I would post it here. Hope someone enjoys it! (fair warning that it might get a little sciency, hope it can still make sense). It's also posted over on Tumblr, so I'm shamelessly going to cross-post this. 😇

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The immune response

huh-HUHH’RRRSHUUU!

A sneeze. That’s what started it all. It erupted from the nose of the person right in front of you. It hit them by surprise, rendering them completely helpless in trying to cover it up. No chance at containing it. Impossible to keep it to themselves. Accompanied with the spray, the small water droplets completely filled with thousands upon thousands of virus particles. 

Another one. You can see them building up for this one, their brows furrowing in on themselves, their nose scrunching up against the tickle. Lips slightly parted as their breath hitches, chest heaving up and down a couple of times before…

hehh hhhh HEH-hhh'HUUSSSsshhhuuu! 

Release. A new cloud of mist, shooting out with force. The sunbeams coming from the window lights it up. Visualizing the contagious cloud surrounding you. It reaches far, further than you can see. You can feel the droplets settle on your hands, all over your bare arms. It lands on your exposed chest, on your chin. Over your lips. 

As you take a breath, the air filling your mouth is mixed with countless amounts of viruses. They seep in, follow the air down into your lungs, purposeful in the way they enter your body. Each one vicious in their search for a cell to infect. In the search for a cell to make their own.

Eventually, your immune system will find the invaders, but not soon enough to stop them. The virus particles have already had plenty of time getting up and personal with too many of your cells before they have a chance. Upon entry inside of your body, they immediately find themselves a nice new home, and ejaculate their DNA deep into the core of your cell. Bringing their stuff and moving in for good. Anything to live, despite not being alive. Their DNA takes complete hold of the cell, much as the cold has already started taking over your body. Fast, but you have no idea yet. You, nor the white blood cells patrolling your body. You are left completely helpless, not able to do anything to fight the inevitable. 

Ah. There, the first of the hijacked cells have started to produce new virus particles, now working for the cold instead. For the enemy. Oh no. The first one just lysed, bursting in an explosion of cell debris, sending out thousands upon thousands of new viruses. Viruses whose only purpose is to infect more cells of your body. Much like a sneeze, they explode out of the cells, and nothing can stop it. The explosion, followed by the wave of viruses invading you, but this time not outside. This time it's inside of you.

It takes a while for your immune system to catch on, and in the meantime the viruses are left unsupervised, taking parts of your body and starting to control it. They’re efficient in their way. If left untreated, they will take over your entire body, leaving you nothing but a virus producing host. Luckily for you, the white blood cells, the soldiers, have started to catch on. It starts with one dendritic cell, engulfing the virus particle and digesting it inside of them. Now it has a job to do. The dendritic cell starts to migrate via the lymphatic system to the closest lymph node, the meeting point. Quickly, quickly. Now it has a purpose. As it moves along it starts to mature, the digested virus has been reduced to nothing but short peptide chains. Small molecules shown off on the cell’s surface, all a preparation for the next step. 

Once it finally reaches its destination, the lymph node, it goes straight into searching for its new partner. Where are you? 

As it moves about, it finally reaches a T cell that it matches with. First, they try each other out, having to come closely together to be able to bind, but once they do, the signaling chain is instant. The T cell wakes up, activates through a series of proteins doing exactly what they are supposed to. Now it’s the T cell’s turn to find its partner. Little B cell, where are you hiding? 

Luckily for you, the T cell finds its B cell, waking it up and switching it on. Instantly, the B cell knows what to do. The fine oiled machinery that’s the adaptive immune response works wonders, and in combination with the earlier response of the innate immune system, your body is now working full force on eliminating the enemy. The cell differentiates and starts to proliferate, and soon you have B cells whose sole purpose is to produce the blessed antibodies. The antibodies that are your secret weapon in the fight against the viruses, your blissful relief towards the cold that is now wreaking havoc inside of your body. 

Because now, now, your immune system is doing its thing. The innate immune response has kicked in, your own immune cells are sending out small signals, the cytokines, causing an inflammatory response. The blood flow increases, gathering all of the white blood cell soldiers, ready to fight. Ready to take back what’s yours from the foreign invaders. The signals of fever have gone out too, and whilst you switch between sweating profoundly and shivering so your teeth chatter, that is exactly what your immune cells need. 

Whilst the cytokines main purpose is to communicate to other cells what they should do, these small molecules are causing great irritation for you. They are annoying as they move about. Tickling their way around your body. Making you cough. Making you sneeze. 

At this point, your nose is tickling constantly with a deep settled itch inside of your nostrils. As you start sneezing, spreading the viruses to your own surroundings, coating the surfaces, your palms which you’ve stupidly enough used to cover, you’re only working in favor of the viruses. Effectively giving the viruses a new possibility to survive, handing it over to a new host only to start the process all over again. 

hii-hiiitshuu! HEH-ss’huuuu!! HAHH-ttssshuuu! hhh–HUHHH’shuuuu!

Despite you feeling sicker and sicker, it only means that your immune cells are starting to wake up. Starting to protect you. With all their might they attack the viruses, as well as your own cells that have been taken over by them. By the enemy. They show no mercy, once a cell shows signs of foreign invaders, the cells attack. And when the B cells are finished with their production of the antibodies? Well, now the viruses don’t stand a chance any more. Once the antibodies come into play, they mark the enemy for destruction, making the killing even more effective. Now, it’s only a matter of time before every last virus particle and infected cell is killed off, and you go back to being normal. But for right now… all you can keep doing is sneehhh-sneeze...

hhhHEE’SSHUUU! huhh–hu’UTSSSHUU! AHH AHH’tttshuuu! HIE-hhh-HE’SSSSHUU!! hiii-hahh-hahhhh’shHHUUuuuw! 

[Zracken3]

This was a fun, little story. Basically a bunch of immunology notes sandwiched between some sneezes, haha! The description of everything was appropriately dramatic, and I enjoyed the reminder that it's the immune system's response that causes the actual sick feeling, not necessarily the virus itself. It takes me back to those educational cartoons that explore the human body. As for the virus, it was interesting to note that the sneezing is used by the immune system to eject it from the body, but viruses have hijacked that response to be a form of transmission. It seems almost devious if it wasn't just evolutionary lol.

[sneezysunshine]

On 3/25/2024 at 12:43 AM, Zracken3 said:

Basically a bunch of immunology notes sandwiched between some sneezes

I do have the not edited version of this without the sneezes which do definitely contain a bunch more science terms haha. I did remove some of it to make it make a bit more sense for the majority of the population. 😅 But if someone is very interested in TCRs, MHCs and BCRs I have you covered. 😂 I am with you on that it is very fascinating to me that the absolute majority of what makes us feel sick is not the viruses or the bacteria (if we have a bacterial infection), but it is mainly our own immune response that makes us feel like crap. Which is very neat in some way. Like, fever serves a purpose in fighting disease, inflammation attracts immune cells so they can do their job, swollen glands is a sign that our B cells are proliferating. Coughing and sneezing are ways of the body to get rid of large amount of virus particles or to get rid of mucus filled with both dead and alive viruses/bacterias and dead immune cells, like for example snot. It is an effect of the infection, sure, but it is not the viruses in themselves that has us miserable. It is actually our own cells that handles that. 

On 3/25/2024 at 12:43 AM, Zracken3 said:

As for the virus, it was interesting to note that the sneezing is used by the immune system to eject it from the body, but viruses have hijacked that response to be a form of transmission. It seems almost devious if it wasn't just evolutionary lol.

As for the sneezes and coughs, yes, it almost seems like the viruses have "a mind" but it's just plain simple evolution, which is so cool to me somehow. I do believe some of the irritation is caused by the affected cells, when they're lysed and stuff, but to my understanding it's mainly the cytokines and other signaling molecules that have us sneezing and coughing to get rid of them. And in the process, we just spread them around even more. 

But but, now I'm done being nerdy, I'm glad you enjoyed it haha. 😂

ALSO this mention just took me back years and years, and made me realize that this fascination I had with those type of cartoons (lol, little snz fetishist brain already forming at a young age it seems), the Ozzy and Drix (was it called that??) I LOVED that show as a child. Just realized maybe there was a deeper reason behind that 😂

Edited March 26 by sneezysunshine

[bingochamp7]

As somewhat of a science nerd, I enjoyed this a lot. Very descriptive of how sneezes spread colds, viruses multiply in the human body, and how the immune system defends against the attack.

[muskysneeze]

34 minutes ago, bingochamp7 said:

As somewhat of a science nerd, I enjoyed this a lot. Very descriptive of how sneezes spread colds, viruses multiply in the human body, and how the immune system defends against the attack.

Hella agree with this. The initial descriptive parts of the sneeze release, all those droplets making up a mist, spray or cloud is what I've always loved to read. Especially in the scenario where it's the sneezer in front of you and all that amazing virus filled sneeze cloud is illuminated by the sunbeam, then slowly and inevitably breathing that sneeze in. It gives me such an adrenaline and arousal