Songming Chen, Chen Lu, Hongbo Gu, Jianwei Li, Patrick Romano, David Horn, D. Craig Hooper, Carthene Bazemore-Walker and Timothy Block1,
Scientific Tracks Abstracts: Transl Med
We have discovered an Aleuria Aurantia Lectin (AAL)-reactive immunoglobulin G (IgG) that naturally occurs in the circulation of rabbits and mice, following immune responses induced by various foreign antigens. Most serum IgGs are poorly bound by AAL unless they are denatured or treated with glycosidase. In this study, using an immunogen-independent AAL-antibody microarray assay that we developed, we detected AAL-reactive IgG in the sera of all animals that had been immunized 1-2 weeks previously with various immunogens with and without adjuvants. All of these animals subsequently developed immunogen-specific immune responses. The kinetics of the production of AAL-reactive IgG in mice and rabbits were distinct from those of the immunogen-specific IgGs elicited in the same animals: They rose and fell within one to two weeks, and peaked between four to seven days after exposure, while immunogen-specific IgGs continued to rise during the same period. Mass spectrometric profiling of the Fc glycoforms of purified AAL-reactive IgGs indicates that these are mainly comprised of IgGs with core-fucosylated and either mono-or non-galactosylated Fc N-glycan structures. Our results suggest that AAL-reactive IgG could be a previously unrecognized IgG subset that is selectively produced at the onset of a humoral response. Moreover, it could be a potential translational biomarker for vaccination.
Songming received his Ph D degree at Department of Chemistry in Jilin University in 1997. He worked as postdoctoral associate in University of Tennessee Medical Center and the Ohio State University. As a scientist, he worked in Van Andel Institute and ImClone Systems on antibody technologies. He joined Institute for Hepatitis and Virus Research as an assistant professor in 1999. He has published 30 peer-reviewed papers in reputed journals.
