Phosphorylcholine antibody responses

Mitchell, G.F. and Lewers, H.M. (1976) Studies on immune responses to parasite antigens in mice IV. Inhibition of an anti-DNP antibody response with antigen, DNP-Ficoll containing phosphorylcholine. International Archives of Allergy and Applied Immunology 52, 235—240. 

Finally an intriguing aspect of H. influenzae infections warrants mention. These bacteria express a lipopolysaccharide whose exposed surface is decorated with phosphorylcholine. As described in Chapter 1, phosphorylcholine is a building block of phosphatidylcholine, a major membrane lipid of eukaryotic cells. However, most bacteria lack phosphatidylcholine and thus H. influenzae has to rely on host cell lipids to obtain phosphorylcholine. The transfer of phosphorylcholine from the host to the bacterial cell surface is an adaptative process that allows the pathogen to mimic characteristics of host cells and to become more resistant to host immune responses. Another astonishing case of "lipid mimicry" has been reported for H. influenzae. A particular strain of nontypable H. influenzae seemed to express a ganglioside GMl-like structure that has been suspected as a generator of anti-GMl antibodies responsible for an axonal Guillain-Barre syndrome. ... 

Haptens, a special class of antigen, are small molecules that induce specific antibody production when they are attached to a protein that acts as a carrier. Phosphorylcholine is one such hapten that has been widely used in the investigation of immune responses. The specific binding of this hapten... 

AlQaoud, KM., Fleischer, B. and Hoerauf, A. (1998) The Xid defect imparts susceptibility to experimental murine filariasis - association with a lack of antibody and IL-10 production by B cells in response to phosphorylcholine. International Immunology 10, 17—25. 

Beckmann, E. and Levitt, D. (1984) Phosphorylcholine on Streptococcus pneumoniae R36a is responsible for in vitro polyclonal antibody secretion by human peripheral blood lymphocytes. Journal of Immunology 132, 2174-2176. 

Crews, S., Griffin, J., Huang, H., Calame, K., Hood, L. (1981). A single VH gene segment encodes the immune response to phosphorylcholine somatic mutation is correlated with the class of the antibody. Cell 25, 59-66. 

Cosenza and Kohler (47,48) and Sher and Cohn (49) found that antiidiotypic antibodies to the myeloma proteins, TEPC 15 or SI07, which have antipneumococcal (antiphosphorylcholine) activity, almost completely inhibit plaque formation by spleen cells from BALB/c mice immunized with heat-killed strain R36A pneumococci. Erythrocytes used in the plaque-forming tests could be coated either with pneumococcal C-polysaccharide or with phosphorylcholine, with similar results. These significant experiments indicated that nearly all the antibodies produced by BALB/c mice in the primary in vitro response to the pneumococcal polysaccharide shju-e idiotype with a group of mouse... 

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