Antibodies Confusion

[Anna92]

Hi guys

 

I am trying to understand and make sense of a report i have to write up, but am close to tearing my hair out, so hopefully someone will be able to help me

 

Basically, it is about protein separation using gel-electrophoresis in order to examine antibody specificity. The substances used were:

 

Bovine serum, anti-bovine serum, bovine IgG and anti-bovine IgG.

 

Which out of the these is the antigen and which are the antibodies?

 

Hope you are able to make it a little clearer for me

 

Thanks

Anna

[Bioc]

Generally, the "anti" prefix refers to the antibodies, so if you have anti-bovine serum that means you have antibodies that bind to proteins of bovine serum.

[Anna92]

Ok thanks. But does the 'IgG' bit not also mean antibody, well immunoglobulin?

[Bioc]

Well, the IgG is an antibody, but it is also recognized as an antigen by the anti-IgG. For example, if you inject the bovine IgG in another animal it would "seen" as a foreign element and neutralized.

[Anna92]

Ah right, thanks so much

[Anna92]

Also....would the anti-bovine serum bind and react with the bovine serum? Sorry, I am beyond confused :S

[CharonY]

There is no anti-bovine serum per se. It is used as lab lingo but technically that nomenclature is incomplete. What is meant are anti-bovine serum antibodies. In this case, antibodies are raised against bovine serum. Thus, bovine serum is the the target of that particular set of antibodies (usually polyclonal and the actual component target within the serum may not actually be known).

[Anna92]

Oooops wrote the wrong thing there, meant to say

 

 

"would the anti-bovine IgG bind and react with the bovine serum? "

[CharonY]

Well, what do you think? Considering that you wondering that you must have some kind of idea, right?

[Anna92]

Well my results show that they do react together, so i'm guessing that the anti-bovine IgG contains antibodies that bind to the proteins in the bovine serum?

[CharonY]

Basically it was raised against serum hence there are antigens in it. It does not necessarily need to be a protein., though they are good candidates.