Immunology question help

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Bodom

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Why would a large molecule be poorly immunogenic? I know large molecules 100,000 daltons or greater are generally good immunogens, but why would a large molecule be poorly immunogenic?

Is ragweed pollen a T-dependent or T-independent antigen? Why? Thanks for the help

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There isn't a good reason why a large molecule wouldn't be immunogenic. The most likely is that it isn't recognized as foreign so it probably would share a large homology with a native protein.

If you are referring to ragweed in the sense of an allergic reaction then ragweed falls into type I hypersensitivity. Type I HS is IgE mediated and requires a primary exposure to produce clones which are isotype switched to IgE. This process is T-dependent via APCs presenting peptide fragments on MHC II molecules to Th cells which induce proliferation of their target B-cells into IgE secreting Abs.

This process generally takes place in the mucosal immune system where there are A) a high number of B-cells that are likely to undergo isotype switching to IgE and B) a large number of mast cells.

The primary response prodcues a lot of IgE which binds nearby mast cells. Upon subsequent exposure to the antigen (ragweed) the ragweed binds the mast cell-IgE and induces degranulation and histamine (necessary and sufficient) is released causing a lot of problems.

Short answer: Immunogenicity isn't directly correlated to molecule size, the degree of homology plays a role. Type I HS is T-dependent.
 
yup. The T- dependent cells in case of pollen are CD4+ T lymphocytes.

You have to remember that one of the biggest unifying concept in immunology is distinguishing self vs. non-self.
So van's explanation is correct in that size isn't necessarily important in immunology rather the homology or heterology (whichever way you want to look at it).

This is probably why new vaccines that are developed are pretty small and more importantly does the job of presenting a specific Ag that is unique to a certain bug.
Instead of giving the whole soup of killed bug or attenuated form of it with adjuvants.
 
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