What exactly does Immune Privilege mean?
In: Biology
AFAIK, if you want to graft someone else’s skin onto a burn victim, their body can reject the new skin since it’s not a normal part of their body. The immune system thinks it doesn’t belong there and begins attacking the new skin like it attacks infections. You may have heard of anti-rejection drugs.
However, there are places on the body where that rejection doesn’t happen normally. Eyes have immune privilege, meaning doctors can do a cornea transplant without worrying that the eye will become inflamed. In other words, the eye should accept the graft without the immune system causing inflammation in the eye.
Why? The guess is that it’s an evolutionary advantage. If you break a finger, you can still be okay if it swells up. That would be super bad with the eyes, hence immune privilege.
Sources: Wikipedia and NIH
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