"Scientists led by Stephanie Eisenbarth, MD, PhD, the Roy and Elaine Patterson Professor of Medicine and director of the Center for Human Immunobiology, have discovered how critical IgA antibodies are produced through unexpected cellular pathways, findings that may help inform the design of more effective vaccines to prevent infections, according to a recent study published in Immunity. Immunoglobulin (Ig)A is an antibody that serves as the first line of defense for mucosal tissues that comprise the inner lining of organs in the respiratory system and digestive"
"We're pretty good at inducing IgG antibodies, the ones that circulate in your blood, but those are not very good at protecting you when something comes in through your nose or from something you've eaten because those antibodies don't penetrate mucosal tissue,' said Eisenbarth, who is also chief of the Allergy and Immunology in the Department of Medicine. Previous work from Eisenbarth's laboratory suggests that IgA antibody induction, or the series of cellular events that lead to the production of IgA, may follow different steps"
IgA antibodies provide first-line defense at mucosal surfaces in the respiratory and digestive tracts. Inducing IgA-specific responses by vaccination has been challenging because circulating IgG antibodies do not effectively protect mucosal tissues. Class switching that produces IgA appears to follow different cellular steps than IgG. Researchers induced antigen-specific IgA responses in mice and applied single-cell RNA and B-cell receptor sequencing to characterize IgA-producing cells. The findings reveal unexpected cellular pathways that generate IgA and clarify distinct mechanisms of class switching. Mapping these pathways offers targets and strategies to design vaccines that elicit stronger mucosal immunity.
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