INTERFERONS

Now that we have completed our very brief look at the role of some of the white blood cells in our innate immune defences, we can turn our attention to some of the extracellular chemical non-specific/innate defences that we possess (extracellular means 'outside of the cell').

The first of these are interferons.

Interferons are a family of proteins that are secreted by cells which have been infected by a virus.

They are secreted out of the cells and are able to protect non-infected cells against attack by that virus.

They do this by inhibiting the viral replication in the neighbouring and infected cells.

They do this non-specifically.