Anti-phosphocholine hybridoma antibodies. I. Direct evidence for three distinct families of antibodies in the murine response

Biochemical and serological studies were performed on more than 400 anti- phosphocholine (PC) hybridoma proteins (HP) derived from six strains of mice; 26 of these HP were examined in detail. All HP possessed specificity for PC, and all those tested contained an H-chain idiotypic determinant, V(H)-PC, which is shared by PC-binding myeloma proteins (BMP) and anti-PC antibodies. Among the HP, three well-defined and distinct families that correlated well with previous studies on serum anti-PC antibodies were identified. The largest group shared idotypic determinants, an L-chain isoelectric focusing (IEF) pattern, and a binding site specificity with the PC-BMP, T15. Using the same criteria, a second group was found to be strikingly similar to another PC-BMP, M603. The third group possessed an idiotypic determinant and an L-chain IEF profile similar to M511, but differences in binding site specificities were observed among the HP. The latter two groups contained members whose L-chain IEF profiles were not identical to other members of that group. Thus, among strains there is a remarkable degree of conservation among responding anti-PC antibodies, in both the kinds of anti-PC families that exist and the immunochemical and structural characteristics of various members within a family. Differences in at least one parameter were observed in each family, demonstrating that even a relatively restricted response is heterogeneous. However, this diversity seems to operate within certain constraints

Absence of N addition facilitates B cell development, but impairs immune responses

The programmed, stepwise acquisition of immunocompetence that marks the development of the fetal immune response proceeds during a period when both T cell receptor and immunoglobulin (Ig) repertoires exhibit reduced junctional diversity due to physiologic terminal deoxynucleotidyl transferase (TdT) insufficiency. To test the effect of N addition on humoral responses, we transplanted bone marrow from TdT-deficient (TdT−/−) and wild-type (TdT+/+) BALB/c mice into recombination activation gene 1-deficient BALB/c hosts. Mice transplanted with TdT−/− cells exhibited diminished humoral responses to the T-independent antigens α-1-dextran and (2,4,6-trinitrophenyl) hapten conjugated to AminoEthylCarboxymethyl-FICOLL, to the T-dependent antigens NP19CGG and hen egg lysozyme, and to Enterobacter cloacae, a commensal bacteria that can become an opportunistic pathogen in immature and immunocompromised hosts. An exception to this pattern of reduction was the T-independent anti-phosphorylcholine response to Streptococcus pneumoniae, which is normally dominated by the N-deficient T15 idiotype. Most of the humoral immune responses in the recipients of TdT−/− bone marrow were impaired, yet population of the blood with B and T cells occurred more rapidly. To further test the effect of N-deficiency on B cell and T cell population growth, transplanted TdT-sufficient and -deficient BALB/c IgMa and congenic TdT-sufficient CB17 IgMb bone marrow were placed in competition. TdT−/− cells demonstrated an advantage in populating the bone marrow, the spleen, and the peritoneal cavity. TdT deficiency, which characterizes fetal lymphocytes, thus appears to facilitate filling both central and peripheral lymphoid compartments, but at the cost of altered responses to a broad set of antigens

Mouse IgG3 antibodies are highly protective against infection with Streptococcus pneumoniae

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/62976/1/294088a0.pd

Kinetics of Somatic Mutation in Lymph Node Germinal Centres

Somatic mutation activity in immunoglobulin V kappa genes during the response to the hapten 2-phenyl-5-oxazolone was measured in lymph node B-cell populations at various timepoints after footpad immunization. When the V kappa Ox1 genes rearranged to the J kappa 5 segment were amplified from genomic DNA using the polymerase chain reaction and sequenced, somatic mutations could be detected as early as day 4 after immunization. Somatic mutations were also detected after sequencing RNA from oxazolone-specific hybridomas derived from lymph node cells at day 4 after immunization. These early mutations were found mostly in cells with a germinal centre phenotype. No indication of selection at the population level by apoptosis was detected until day 7 after immunization. These results suggest somatic mutations can be induced very early during the immune response in lymph node cells, prior to the peak of clonal expansion and selection with regard to antigen binding

Introduction: Cooking, Cuisine and Class and the Anthropology of Food

In a review essay discussing Jack Goody’s (1982) Cooking, Cuisine and Class: A Study in Comparative Sociology, the anthropologist Sidney Mintz describes the book as ‘a pioneering work, because it looks broadly at the many-sided relationship between food and the rest of culture’ (Mintz 1989: 185). Later, Mintz and Christine Du Bois (2002) argue that the publication of Cooking, Cuisine and Class in 1982 marked a ‘turning point’ in the development of the anthropology of food and eating. By the time of their writing in 2002, they assert that the field had ‘matured enough to serve as a vehicle for examining large and varied problems of theory and research methods’ (Mintz and Du Bois 2002: 100). Since then, the anthropology of food has continued to prosper and mature. This is evidenced by a growing number of academic conferences, research centres, university course modules and postgraduate programmes and by the proliferation and growing sophistication of publications in the anthropology and wider social science of food, including dedicated journals (e.g., Food, Culture and Society; Food and Foodways; Gastronomica; Food and History), readers (e.g., Watson and Caldwell 2005; Counihan and Van Esterik 2013) and handbooks (e.g., Murcott, Belasco and Jackson 2013; Pilcher 2012; Watson and Klein forthcoming)