This topic covers the role of antigens in challenging the immune system leading to antibody production. There are many details required including knowledge of B lymphocytes, T lymphocytes, memory cells and plasma cells. Vaccination as a method of promoting antibody production leading to immunity is an important concept in this topic as is the production of mono-clonal antibodies.
Learn and test your biological vocabulary using these 11.1 Antibodies and vaccination flashcards.
Summary
Summary list for 11.1 Antibody production & vaccination
Cells & pathogens
- The surface of cells of an organism has unique molecules.
- Pathogens can be species-specific or can cross species barriers.
Antibody production involves the following:
- B lymphocytes are activated by T lymphocytes in mammals.
- Activated B lymphocytes multiply to form clones of plasma cells and memory cells (giving immunity).
- Plasma cells secrete antibodies which aid the destruction of pathogens.
- Other white blood cells release histamine in response to allergens which causes allergic symptoms.
Vaccination and monoclonal antibodies
- Vaccines contain antigens that trigger an immune response without causing the disease.
- Fusion of a tumour cell with an antibody-producing plasma cell creates a hybridoma cell.
- Monoclonal antibodies are produced by hybridoma cells.
- Monoclonal antibodies to HCG are used in pregnancy test kits.
Skills & applications
- Smallpox was the first infectious disease of humans to have been eradicated by vaccination.
- Human vaccines are often produced using the immune responses of other animals
- Blood group antigens on the surface of red blood cells stimulate antibody production in a different blood group.
- Skills to analyse epidemiological data related to vaccination programmes.
Mindmaps
This diagram summaries the main sections of topic 11.1 about antibodies and vaccination.
Test if you can draw something like these concept maps from memory.
Antibodies
Explaining the processes which lead to immunity following a vaccination is an important skill from this topic.
Answer the question below on a piece of paper, then check your answer against the model answer below.
Explain how exposure to antibodies leads to the production of antibodies by the immune system. [4]
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Click the + icon to see a model answer.
Multiple choice questions
This is a self marking quiz containing questions covering the topic outlined above.
Try the questions to check your understanding.
START QUIZ!
Describe the consequences of activation on B-lymphocytes of the immune system?
When B-lymphocytes are activated they clone themselves and make antibodies which have receptors for a single antigen.
What is the name given to the surface molecule on a pathogen which provokes an immune response?
Antigens produce an immune reaction leading to the creation of antibodies.
What can be produced by the fusion of a B-lymphocyte and a myeloma cell?
The fusion of a tumour cell with an antibody-producing plasma cell creates a hybridoma cell.
The diagram shows a graph of immune responses, measured by antibiotic concentration in the blood, after infection with a pathogen and after a subsequent reinfection.
Which of the following can be correctly concluded from this graph?
This (2 days) is about 30% of seven days.
The diagram shows the number of deaths per year for children under five. Three diseases are preventable by vaccines, the grey bar shows numbers for diseases not preventable by vaccines.
Estimate the percentage decreases in diseases not preventable by vaccines?
In 2017 it had reduced to 3.7 million. This is a decrease of 2.6 million which is 42% of 6.3 million.
The graph below shows global numbers of smallpox cases between 1920 and 2010.
The WHO vaccination and surveillance program began in 1966. Smallpox was declared eradicated in 1980.
What other conclusion could be made using the data from this graph?
The reduction in the number of case was not uniform, outbreaks causes huge increases in cases at several points during this period.
Vaccines may have been more effective than surveillance, but there is no data to support this in the graph. In fact the last case was in 1977.
What is the role of B-lymphocytes in the human immune response?
Macrophages or T-lymphocytes are the first cells involved in a specific immune response, and they activate B-lymphocytes which divide into plasma cells and memory cells. The plasma cells then produce and release antibodies, specific to the antigens presented to the T-lymphocyte in the beginning.
In a study by Utrecht University in the Netherlands, a vet was sent to houses to test animals that were living with an owner infected with COVID-19. Six cats out of 154 cats (3.9%) and 7 dogs our of 156 dogs (4.5%) tested positive for COVID-19, while 31 cats (20.1%) and 23 dogs (14.7%) had coronavirus antibodies. The majority of cases in cats and dogs do not have any symptoms of illness.
Which of the folllowing conclusions could be made from the study?
Some pathogens are species specific but this is not the case for the virus COVID-19. This virus can cross the species barrier from one species to another. Some theories suggest that it originated in bats, and may have been transfered to humans through another species, perhaps a pangolin. There is also evidence of zoo animals catching COVID-19 and from the study in this question, domesticated animals like cats and dogs.
The data in the question is inconclusive, in insufficient about whether dogs or cats catch covid more easily.
The disease is most often not a serious illness in these animals, and it is most likely that humans contaminate their pets and ont the pets contaminating humans.
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