Which of the following "lines of defense" of your immune system would you expect to respond?

Question

During your second week on the job, you accidentally expose yourself to a non-lethal intracellular virus. Which of the following "lines of defense" in your immune system would you expect to respond?

a) interferons
b) cytotoxic T-cells
c) macrophages
d) b and c
e) a and b

And ideas?
Thanks for the help!

Answer 1

The real answer is all of them!

Interferon is named that because it interferes with viral replication inside cells. It is, in fact, just about the only chemical (other than a targetted antibody) that does that kind of thing. Certain viral infections are treated with injected interferon in hospitals.

One of the other things that interferon does is to increase the activity of cytotoxic T-cells and macrophages. Cytotoxic T-cells specifically target virally infected cells and kill them so the virus can't replicate and spread. A macrophage is more of a generalist - it's job is just to engulf anything dangerous-looking (including all those cells recently killed by T-cells) and digest or at least sequester it away from the rest of your body.

If I had to pick only two, I'd leave out the macrophages, since they aren't specific to viruses. So of the choices, I'm going to have to go with E.

Answer 2

I know c is correct, but the other 2 I don’t know.