IUBio

Antibody repertiore

StarStar scholl at ipass.net.ANTISPAM
Sun Apr 27 08:10:28 EST 1997


Malarchuk wrote:
> 
>  I am currentlyenrolled in an Immunology course.  I understand that the
> human body has an antibody repertiore of 10e9 antibodies.  Our teacher
> indicated that the
> human body can make antibodies to common everyday plastic, how is that
> possible if plastic is only a relatively "recent" invention?

The (human) body cannot make a specific antibody for every antigen or
foreign particle out there in our world.  If it could we would need the
genetic material for an immunoglobulin (or antibody) to form an antibody
for every possible thing.  If we did have this genetic material our
cells would be basically nothing but immunological DNA.

Instead the antibodies we make go through a process (which you should be
able to find in your textbook) called "Somatic hypermutation" by which
the binding site of the antibody mutates (somewhat, tho not completely,
randomly) and aother process called "affinity maturation" by which the
mutations are selected for or against, depending on how well they bind
to the antigen they are trying to "fight".

It is through somatic hypermutation and affinity maturation that we can
make antibodies specific for specific antigens - including plastic (tho
I've never heard that example used before!)

That should get you most if not full credit on that exam question ;^)
(Amazing how these newsgroups get so quiet with nswers during exam
time....)



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