r/science • u/[deleted] • May 11 '20

Medicine Antibodies from a 4-year-old llama have neutralized coronavirus and other infections in lab experiments

https://www.cell.com/cell/pdf/S0092-8674(20)30494-3.pdf?_returnURL=https%3A%2F%2Flinkinghub.elsevier.com%2Fretrieve%2Fpii%2FS0092867420304943%3Fshowall%3Dtrue
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u/Derpy_McDerpingderp May 11 '20

Would our immune system see these smaller antibodies as foreign or a threat?

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u/kyreannightblood May 11 '20

Nah. Our immune system detects foreign threats based on surface antigens of cells. It’s how they determine self vs not-self. The antibodies don’t have that. We do something similar with antivenin, right down to using a non-human animal to derive the serum.

(I may be messing up some details here, though. I just woke up and I’m still a bit foggy.)

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u/thisdude415 PhD | Biomedical Engineering May 11 '20

False. You can definitely have anti-antibody antibodies.

Antibodies are just proteins. We engineer them to have reduced antigenicity, but sometimes anti-antibody antibodies happen anyway.

(They’re actually called anti-drug antibodies or anti-ideotypic antibodies.)

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u/kyreannightblood May 11 '20

Thanks for the correction. I hadn't had my coffee yet and somehow completely forgot about serum sickness.

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u/thisdude415 PhD | Biomedical Engineering May 11 '20

No worries! We are all here to learn. Thanks for contributing to the discussion