Frequently Asked Questions about Antibodies Class Switching in Antibody Immunotherapy Science.

If you’ve been studying antibody immunotherapy and you’ve met several times cases where the antibodies were very flexible and capable of changing into other types of antibody structures with different effector functions. Then this blogpost will cover the most common questions that you might have about how this is possible and what causes it, and what is responsible for making it happen.

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So what are antibodies and what are classes?

If you’re not familiar with antibodies they’re made of immunoglobulins or glycoproteins, that are Y-shaped, and they have several regions along with 2 sets of heavy and light chains, each type of these heavy and light chains along with the amino acid numbers that are carried on them forms the structure of these antibodies and thus what each antibody does in terms of its own effector function and detection capabilities.

It should be noted also that the main type of an antibody is either called class or isotype.

And what is class or isotype switching?

It’s a biological process that happens when the activation of B cells occurs and it allows the production of several immunoglobulin types like IgE or IgG, and because their structures change, their functions change.

And why is changing classes is of any value, what’s the point?

Antibodies when encountering different types of antigens and their detection there are some functions needed that aren’t present in the presently available types of antibodies, and thus changing their type’s enables the antibody to adapt its function whenever antigenic challenges present themselves.

And what is the source of these class switching antibodies?

In actuality they’re a result of the progeny of activated B-cells.

And how does class-switching happens?

To be precise, the constant C regions in the heavy chains of these antibodies change from one type to another, which leads to the change of the structure and thus the function.

While when it comes to the variable region, nothing changes in it.

Why it is nothing changes in the variable region?

Because this region is responsible for antigen targeting, and thus if it changes, then the same antigen wouldn’t be targeted.

And what causes these changes to occur, like what is the trigger for this process?

The trigger for this process is actually the Cytokines, and based on the cytokines present in the environment through which the class-switching takes place, determines the types that will result from such switches.

And thus this wraps our brief Q&A about antibody class switching in the science of antibody immunotherapy.

Global Allied Pharmaceuticals (GAP) has more than 14 years of experience in immuno-oncology and immunotherapy field. You can contact us on www.gapsos.com for further information.