Ever since the COVID-19 pandemic hit the world, the antibody has grown as a topic of much interest. You may or may not have heard of antibodies in the past due to the level of your interest in biology, but you must know that antibodies are significant to our existence as humans. Be aware they fight viruses, infections, diseases, and bacteria.
Seven facts to know about antibodies
Below you will find facts about antibodies that you should know, such as antibody production, shape, process, and more.
- Antibodies are proteins produced by the immune system that are Y in shape
The immune system produces antibodies in a few different shapes and sizes. Still, the most common of them are the antibodies produced in Y shape, called immunoglobulin G (IgG antibodies). Antibodies are bonded to other foreign proteins (ie, antigens) with their upper arms, which have similar binding sites at their tips.
Antibodies fight foreign proteins / threats, and their binding sites are also referred to as variable domains. Every lgG antibody shares the base of Y shape, which is referred to as the F c region. To trigger a more significant attack against the foreign proteins / threats, it binds to Fc receptors which you can find in several immune cells.
2. How Industrial antibodies are produced and the importance
There are two viable methods used for antibody production vitro and in vivo methods. For this article, we will discuss in vitro antibody production. In-vitro antibody production uses a technique where antibodies are produced through the hybridoma method. Using a mouse or rat as a test subject, the animal is injected with the target viral antigen, which gives it immunity.
After antibodies generation occurs in the animal, an extraction and fusion of the animal’s lymphocytes with myeloid cells to produce hybridomas occurs. After which the hybridoma cell line grows and multiplies in vitro; the antibodies are secreted into the culture, where they are kept in isolation and later collected. The importance of using in vitro method is because it provides flexible production quantity; it also produces antibodies with a purity level of greater than 95%. Industrial antibodies are beneficial for a weak immune system.
- Antibodies have a slow development process to offer long term protection
There are two layers of immune protection that your body possesses, and they are innate immunity and adaptive immunity . Innate immunity is associated with the redness and swelling you see around your wounds; blood vessels dilate and leak to aid the immune reinforcements to reach the affected area. Firstly there is a nonspecific response in the body to buy time to enable the adaptive immunity to counter powerful and targeted attacks. Your body possesses a two-stage fail-safe mechanism to ensure that adaptive immunity is aimed at only actual threats because it is pretty strong.
4. Antibodies are not created equal
Two factors that affect an antibody’s effectiveness against foreign are how strong it can bind to threats and where it binds to them. The immune system on its own can’t know which antibodies to make, so it could eventually secrete tons of antibodies that bind to a protein on a viral antigen or different part of the same protein. While some antibodies are more effective than others, some might not inhibit the viral antigen.
Still, the rest of the antibodies are called neutralizing antibodies to defend the body from infection. You must know that even though some antibodies don’t fight against threats, they might still have their value to the body because anything the innate immune system sees is coated with an antibody; it will assume it is foreign. Some of the natural immune system cells are called macrophages, which digests foreign threats coated with antibodies.
- Accelerating the protection provided by antibodies in two ways
Sometimes viruses might have infected your system before your body antibodies respond or might have become weak to answer; there are two ways to speed up the production process of antibodies, which are vaccines (active immunity) from inactivated virus or viral antigens and therapeutic antibodies (passive immunity). In the previous section, you saw that some antibodies can bind to a virus but still not neutralize it; that is also another problem faced.
A vaccine makes an excellent choice as a therapeutic technique to enhance a person’s antibody; the vaccine works by stimulating the immune system to recognize a virus and produce memory B cells to fight against the virus and guard the body against future infection. Scientists trust vaccines to offer a robust and long-lasting active immunity, but it takes weeks or months to develop protection.
Injecting neutralizing antibodies that are produced outside of the body to the patients can treat diseases. Although therapeutic antibodies are faster when treating infection, they will last a few weeks before they are ejected from the body through natural processes, just like the body’s antibodies. This means that vaccines offer a long-lasting solution, but it takes time before it becomes effective. While the antibody therapy is fast but doesn’t last long, your doctor will know best which to recommend for you at any point in time.
- Virus shapes are ever-changing
The one problem faced when an antibody binds to a virus is that the target virus doesn’t stay in the same position for long —they always mutilate. To inhibit a target virus, it must have a complementary shape similar to the antibody to work; the ever-changing shape of the virus due to mutilation reduces the effectiveness of the antibody. A specialist’s job is to keep up to date on how the form of the virus is changing to target viral antigens or protein segments that have a tiny chance to mutate.
- How antibodies work
Earlier in the article, you saw that an antibody could only work when its shape fits the virus it is binding with; this principle is called shape complementarity. In real life, you need a matching key to unlock a door. It is no different from an antibody; an antibody can only bind to a viral antigen if it has the same shape. You may wonder how the immune system can produce antigens that will fit the profile of foreign items in the body; the body possesses trillions of lymphocytes (i.e., B and T cells) where each is furnished with uniquely shaped receptors.
Key Takeaway
Neutralizing antibodies need to bind to antigens to fight them, which is why this article is essential. Aside from this, you have also learned that the industrial production of antibodies is also crucial to your body, like the naturally produced antibodies, especially in times when your immune system is weak or it takes a longer time to produce antibodies.