In article <38AC84C2.C0BFCAC8 at home.com>, D Forsdyke
<URL:mailto:forsdyke1 at home.com> wrote:
[snip]
>> Thus, "self" is the ULTIMATE FRAME OF REFERENCE in a
> biological system. Self is that which is encoded in your
> genes at the time of your first appearance on this planet.
> Genes which change during your life (so that different gene
> products are synthesized) may either be considered as still
> "self" (e.g. antibody variable region genes), or be considered
> as transformed to "not-self" (e.g. a potential oncogene, ...
> which you hope the immune system will attend to).
>Hi Donald,
I've been away at conference so I'm picking up this thread on my return.
Do you really think in this context antibody V-genes are always seen as
self? I've made several anti-idiotypic antibodies in the past and the
easiest way to ensure the anti-idiotype is to immunise the same strain of
animal from which you got the original idiotype. This avoids the plethora
of anti-Fc and anti-allotype antibodies that you get when immunising other
strains or even species.
I strongly suspect that we are not tolerant of all of our self
immunoglobulin idiotypes but we are on the whole naturally 'ignorant' of
some, 'tolerant' of some and make 'anti-idiotypes' to the rest!
Take a look at
http://www.biospace.com/articles/020700.cfm
This is a good example I think of where ignorance of immunology is manifest
in the biotech industry. The idea in the article is that because transgenic
mice with human V-genes make human like antibodies they will be
'non-immunogenic' in patients. The 'false' marketing assumption made about
these mice is that immunogenicity is only a function of sequence. Hopefully
no serious immunologist would these days adhere to this concept?
> I have an uncomfortable feeling that I have not thought this matter
> through as thoroughly as I should have done. Advice/input/ opinion would
> be welcome. For more, see the URL below.
>> Donald Forsdyke. Discussion Leader. Bionet.immunology
>http://post.queensu.ca/~forsdyke/prions.htm>
Mike Clark, <URL:http://www.path.cam.ac.uk/~mrc7/>
--
o/ \\ // || ,_ o M.R. Clark, PhD. Division of Immunology
<\__,\\ // __o || / /\, Cambridge University, Dept. Pathology
"> || _`\<,_ // \\ \> | Tennis Court Rd., Cambridge CB2 1QP
` || (_)/ (_) // \\ \_ Tel.+44 1223 333705 Fax.+44 1223 333875
