IUBio

What is the prime (') in F(ab)'2

MARGARET FRANCES DISBURY mfd at aber.ac.uk
Wed Sep 20 04:21:34 EST 1995


>In article <43ml4m$nma at netnews.upenn.edu>, David Peritt
><Peritt_d at a1.mscf.upenn.edu> wrote:
>
>> I TA an undergrad Immunology and the proffessor was stumped by the
>> history behind the prime in the nomenclature for f(ab)'2 and Fab'.  Can
>> anyone shed light on this??

I was a biology student a long time ago & did maths in school 
even longer ago.  I seem to remember that ' was used in set 
theory to mean "everything that isn't X",  where X plus X' equals 
the universal set (curly E).  Extrapolating from this, I used to 
guess that Fab' was a denatured/altered version of Fab.

Any dissenting opinions welcomed !

Fran
-- 
___________________________________________________________________
Fran Disbury     JANET: mfd at uk.ac.aber    Internet: mfd at aber.ac.uk
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