The fight against infectious diseases progressed as medical scientists have devised a method for producing components of the immune system, known as monoclonal antibodies, which mark and neutralize foreign invaders.
According to Patrick Wilson, Ph.D., of the Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation and his colleagues, it is burst of immune activity that peaks about seven days after a vaccination that is used in quickly producing large quantities of monoclonal antibodies in lab.
The study was reported on April 30 in the online journal, ‘Nature.’ It involved isolation of antibody-secreting cells or plasma cells, from people vaccinated for influenza and then cloned antibody genes from these cells.
“We can recognize which cells are made and then make antibodies from them directly,” said Wilson. “It is a rapid and efficient way to make fully human antibodies.” Under the existing process, described as the “needle in a haystack approach”, human antibodies are tailored from a single line of cells at great cost and effort.
For ethical and practical reasons, monoclonal antibodies are usually made in mice. And sometimes there arises a problem as the human immune system recognizes the mouse proteins as foreign and attacks them instead, leading to an allergic reaction, and sometimes even death.
Researchers have now devised ways to replace some or all of mouse-derived bits with those produced in humans.
The breakthrough came as the researchers watched the time course of the immune response after healthy volunteers were given a flu booster shot – seven days later there emerged a crest of IgG+ antibody-secreting plasma cells (ASCs).
Up to 80 percent of the cells secreted antibodies specific to the flu, said Wilson and colleagues. At their peak, they accounted for up to 16 percent of all B cells produced by the donors, although the average was 6.4 percent of B cells.
"With just a few tablespoons of blood, we can now rapidly generate human antibodies that can be used for immunization, diagnosis and treatment of newly emerging strains of influenza," Wilson said in a statement. "In the face of a disease outbreak, the ability to quickly produce infection-fighting human monoclonal antibodies would be invaluable."
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