Antibody binding

[Mike Clark]

In article <3373B567.5E42 at biopraxis.com>, <URL:mailto:kklimpel at biopraxis.com>
wrote:
> How tightly will an antibody hold onto an antigen?  If you have 100 ab 
> (with two binding sites) of a realatively high affinity (10E-9) in a 
> liter and 200 antigen molecules, will they all be bound by the ab, or 
> will the off rate be such that only a percentage will be bound or will 
> none bind because the solution is to dilute?  I'm  looking for an 
> explanation of antibody affinity that I can relate to in simple terms. 
> Any help, guesses would be appreciated.    
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> -Kurt
> 

In it's simplest concept  Ka=[AbAg]/[Ab][Ag]

So if you take an association constant of your choice and an antigen
and antibody concentration of your choice just use the above formula.

Clearly this is defined at equilibrium.

Mike Clark, mrc7 at cam.ac.uk          http://www.path.cam.ac.uk/~mrc7/
-- 
  o/ \\    //            ||  ,_ o   Dr. M.R. Clark, Division of Immunology
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