Immunogenicity
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Immunogenicity is the ability of a particular substance, which is called the antigen, to provoke an immune response.
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[edit] Immunogenicity
The ability to induce humoral and/or cell-mediated immune responses
The ability of antigen to elicit immune response is called “Immunogenicity”.
Antigens that do provoke the immune response are called-”immunogens”
[edit] Immunogenic potency of antigens
Lipids, nucleic acids serve as immunogens only when they are in combination with proteins/polysaccharides.
-For studies of humoral immune response – proteins/ polysaccharides are used
-For cell-mediated immunity – only proteins serve as immunogens
[edit] Factors influencing immunogenicity
->Contribution of antigen to immunogenicity
->Contribution of biological system to immunogenicity
[edit] Antigens and immunogenicity
see the diagram
Immunogenicity is influenced by multiple characteristics of an antigen:
-Foreignness: Phylogenetic distance
-Epitope density
-Chemical composition and heterogeneity
Protein structure, aa-polymers, Glu-Lys, Tyr, Phe
-Degradability (ability to be processed & presented to T cells)
[edit] References
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