Immunology: More sources of antibody diversity

Antibody structure and molecular immunology.

Some sciences are exciting because of their generality and some because of their predictive power. Immunology is particularly exciting, however, because it provokes unusual ideas, some of which are not easily come upon through other fields of study. Indeed, many immunologists believe that for this reason, immunology will have a great impact on other branches of biology and medicine. On an occas...

Less fear, more diversity

Fear is an instinctual response that's adaptive and critical for survival when it is short-lived but can lead to anxiety disorders when chronic. Studying how the brain controls our fears helps us understand the mechanisms required to recover from traumatic experiences and what goes wrong when we don't. Research in rodents has identified neural circuits and molecular mechanisms regulating fear e...

Reshaping Antibody Diversity

Some species mount a robust antibody response despite having limited genome-encoded combinatorial diversity potential. Cows are unusual in having exceptionally long CDR H3 loops and few V regions, but the mechanism for creating diversity is not understood. Deep sequencing reveals that ultralong CDR H3s contain a remarkable complexity of cysteines, suggesting that disulfide-bonded minidomains ma...

Antibody wars: extreme diversity.

The structural immunology of antibody protection against West Nile virus.

SUMMARY Recent investigations of the interaction between the West Nile virus (WNV) envelope protein (E) and monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) have elucidated fundamental insights into the molecular mechanisms of neutralization. Structural studies have defined an epitope on the lateral ridge of domain III (DIII-lr) of the WNV E protein that is recognized by antibodies with the strongest neutralizing ...