title: The immune system as a supersystem.
abstract: I coined a term "supersystem" to designate highly integrated life systems such as the immune system, nervous system, and embryogenesis. While the mechanistic system is defined as a set of diverse elements so connected and related as to form an organic whole for a particular purpose, the "supersystem" engenders its own elements from a single progenitor. The diverse elements thus generated form relationship by mutual adaptation and coadaptation, and thus they create a dynamic self-regulating system through self-organization. It is a closed self-satisfied system, yet open to the environment, receiving outside signals to transduce them into internal messages for self-regulation and expansion. Unlike a mechanistic system, the "supersystem" has no defined purpose and determines its own fate by referring to its self-established behavioral pattern. Both the immune and nervous systems develop and function as a typical "supersystem." The prototype of the supersystem can be seen in embryogenesis and evolution. The concept of the supersystem can also be applied to the development of language, or a city, or other cultural phenomena that human beings have created as a result of their vital activities.
authors.affiliation: Research Institute for Biological Sciences, Science University of Tokyo, Chiba, Japan.
authors.forename: T
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Tada
mesh_terms: D028341:Activins; D000818:Animals; D016207:Cytokines / Q000502:physiology; D006801:Humans; D007107:Immune System / Q000196:embryology / Q000502:physiology*; D007265:Inhibins / Q000502:physiology; D015213:Neuroimmunomodulation / Q000502:physiology; D013601:T-Lymphocytes / Q000276:immunology; D014982:Xenopus laevis / Q000196:embryology / Q000276:immunology
chemical_list: D016207:Cytokines; D028341:Activins; D007265:Inhibins