2. Explain antibody production
- An antigen is a foreign body in the blood. Examples of antigens include foreign proteins, pathogenic bacteria, and viruses.
- An antibody is a globular protein that recognizes an antigen and attaches to its surface, forming an antibody-antigen complex.
- When an antigen is in the blood, a lymphocyte with the correct antibody will attach to it and then respond by dividing to form a clone. The clone produces thousands of antibodies and secretes them to fight against the antigen.
- Phagocytes depend on antibodies to recognize antigens. When a phagocyte detects an antibody-antigen complex it ingests the whole complex by the process of phagoctytosis.
3. Describe the production of monoclonal antibodies and their use in diagnosis and treatment
- Monoclonal antibodies are monospecific antibodies that are the same because they are made by identical immune cells that are all clones of a unique parent cell, in contrast to polyclonal antibodies which are made from several different immune cells. Monoclonal antibodies have monovalent affinity, in that they bind to the same epitope.
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