To all the mammalian immunologists out there,
I am studying the possibilities of making oral vaccines for fish
farming, and have discovered the following phenomenon with a protein
antigen:
-when injected IP into fish, you get a serum Ab response
-when you feed the antigen, there is no serum Ab response; however there
*is* a serum Ab response to a hapten attached to the antigen
-if you prime the fish with an IP injection of antigen (without
adjuvant), and let the serum Ab response fall away to zero, and *then*
you dose fish orally, there is a serum Ab response to antigen.
My conclusion has been that the intestine initially lacks a population
of B cells specific to the antigen, but IP priming can seed the gut with
specific B cells that are present systemically. This seeding means that
future antigen encountered at the gut invokes a Ab response.
I wonder, does anyone out there know of a parallel to this in mammals?
Ideally I would like to find a paper where a similar phenomenon occurred
in a mammal, ie. restriction in gut B cell repertoire was overcome by IP
priming. So far I have not turned up anything in my searches.
Thanks for your help,
darren (darren.jones at uts.edu.au)
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