Our bodies are continuously concocting specific antibodies to thwart invaders like a virus or even pollen, and scientists have new information about how the essential production gets fired up and keeps up.
Our bodies are continuously concocting specific antibodies to thwart invaders like a virus or even pollen, and scientists have new information about how the essential production gets fired up and keeps up.
It’s a key protective mechanism that the scientists want to better understand with the long-term goal of manipulating it to help keep us well, says Dr. Nagendra Singh, immunologist in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at the Medical College of Georgia at Augusta University.
“We are trying to design small molecules that can either block or activate this pathway,” says Singh, corresponding author of the study in the journal Nature Communications.
The pathway is called ufmylation, and in this pathway, a polypeptide call Ufm1 is known to target other proteins, connect with them, and change their function. One of those proteins is Ufbp1, and investigators have learned that the Ufbp1 that emerges is key to both immune cells called naïve B cells becoming antibody-producing plasma cells and to plasma cells stepping up production of protective antibodies.
Read more at Medical College of Georgia at Augusta University
Image: Drs. Nagendra Singh (right) and Huabin Zhu (Credit: Phil Jones, Senior Photographer, Augusta University)
