Where do antibodies come from and what function do they have?
1 Answer
Antibodies are proteinaceous molecules secreted in body fluid/plasma by B cells. Antibodies help our body to fight with disease causing organisms/chemicals.
Explanation:
Antibodies are produced by specialised white blood cells called lymphocytes. At the time of birth of a child, lymphocytes are not differentiated, neither can they produce antibodies.
After birth, different types of pathogens enter child's body and lymphocytes get exposed to these. Such exposed lymphocytes become programmed to produce antibody after maturing in Bone marrow or in Thymus: accordingly they become B cell or T cell. Exposure to different types of pathogen lead to appearance of different batches of lymphocytes. A particular lymphocyte can secrete antibody against a particular pathogen.
Some Memory B cells remain inside body which undergo proliferation when exposed to the same type of disease pathogen. Such newly generated progeny of B cells are called plasma cells. Plasma cells secrete large amount of antibodies. Antibodies provide immunity: i.e. protect our body from getting infected by diseases. Thus life long immunity is achieved by a single exposure to pathogen.
Antibody is a Y shaped globulin type protein. Each antibody can attach to a particular type of antigen (= a molecule that generates immune response) and neutralise the pathogenic antigen.
