Guy Hermans wrote:
>> Apparently, the topological route of entry selects for a specific subset
> of antigen presenting cell. In other words; ip/freunds will preferentially
> use the intraperitoneal cavity macrophages as APC's, while the intrademal
> route will locate the antigen near the Langerhals cells there. These will
> take up the antigen and migrate to the draining lymph nodes, maturing to
> dendritic cells there. Both APC-derived cytokines and adhesion molecules
> on the APC seem to make a difference in the resulting response.
>> The type of antigen presenting cell influences the response you'll get;
> therefore, route of entry will -indirectly- influence the response as
> well.
>> Sorry to say , but your results obtained by ip immunisation will be hard
> to match with the ones obtained through id. However, you might make a
> point in your project by comparing the results of both methods.
>Grace, I should do some Medline searching on this. I think there is
literature out there on route of immunisation and this is one of those
subjects where every Ph.D. student re-invents the wheel. BTW, an
excellent way to use Medline is the NCBI Pubmed search engine at
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/PubMed
Personally, I think material injected into the PEC drains into the blood
quickly and then gets pretty much everywhere. However, I guess the
Freunds might keep it in the PEC as a big oily blob.
Andy Fell
