Adaptive optical biocompact disk for molecular recognition

We report the use of adaptive interferometry to detect a monolayer of protein immobilized in a periodic pattern on a spinning glass disk. A photorefractive quantum-well device acting as an adaptive beam mixer in a two-wave mixing geometry stabilizes the interferometric quadrature in the far field. Phase modulation generated by the spinning biolayer pattern in the probe beam is detected as a homodyne signal free of amplitude modulation. Binding between antibodies and immobilized antigens in a two-analyte immunoassay was tested with high specificity and without observable cross reactivity. (c) 2005 American Institute of Physics

Blocking of primary in vitro antibody responses to thymus-independent and thymus-dependent antigens with antiserum specific for IgM or IgD.

The effect of anti-mu and anti-delta on the primary in vitro IgM response of murine splenocytes to thymus-dependent (trinitrophenylated erythrocytes) and thymus-independent (trinitrophenylated brucella) forms of trinitrophenyl was studied. The results indicate that either anti-mu or anti-delta can block the response of adult splenocytes to the thymus-dependent antigen. The thymus-dependent responses of neonatal splenocytes that bear a low concentration of IgD were also abrogated by treatment with anti-delta. In contrast, anti-mu, but not anti-delta, blocked the response of adult splenocytes to the thymus-independent antigen used. These results indicate that both IgM and IgD are receptors required for triggering cells by a thymus-dependent antigen but that only IgM receptors are required for triggering by the thymus-independent antigen used

B-cell tolerance. IV. Differential role of surface igm and igd in determining tolerance susceptibility of murine b cells.

During ontogeny IgD appears later than IgM on splenocytes of neonatal mice (1) and at a time when mice develop a markedly increased immune responsiveness (2). Based on these observations, it was suggested that IgD serves as a “triggering” isotype for induction of immune responses, whereas surface IgM functions as a tolerizing receptor (3). To test this hypothesis, the susceptibility of adult splenocytes (which are predominantly μ(+)δ(+)[4-6]) and neonatal splenocytes (which bear predominantly IgM [μp(+); 1, 4-6]) to tolerance induction were compared. The results indicate that neonatal splenic B cells responsive to thymus dependent (TD) antigens are exquisitely susceptible to tolerance induction compared with those from adult mice (7-9). However, cells from both adult and neonatal mice were highly susceptible to tolerance induction when thymus independent (TI) antigen was used as immunogen (8). These results suggest that the major precursor for the TD response is a μ(+)δ(+)-cell which appears late in ontogeny and is resistant to tolerance induction and that the μp(+)-cell is the major precursor for the TI response and is highly susceptible to tolerance induction. Other differences between responders for TI and TD antigens have been described previously (10-12). To test this concept, adult splenocytes were treated with papain under conditions in which IgD, but not five other surface molecules, was removed (13). Such treated splenocytes were shown to be markedly susceptible to tolerance induction, resembling TD responders from neonatal animals. This experiment was interpreted as indicating that IgD confers resistance to tolerance induction on μ(+)δ(+)-cells. To prove this interpretation, it is necessary to show that specific removal of IgD with anti-δ also results in increased susceptibility to tolerance induction and that treatment with anti-μ does not have a similar effect. In the present studies, we have removed surface IgM or IgD by antibody-induced capping and assessed the tolerance susceptibility of the treated cells. Our results demonstrate that removal of IgD, but no IgM, from TD responders increases their susceptibility to tolerance induction