What is the meaning of agglutination?
1 Answer
Oct 21, 2016
Agglutination is the clumping of particles. Agglutination occurs if an antigen is mixed with its corresponding antibody.
Explanation:
In agglutination, antibodies with multiple binding sites stick large groups of particulate antigens together. This makes the whole mess easier to dispose off, by macrophages and other phagocytes.
Agglutination is possible because each antibody molecule has 2 antigen binding sites and can cross link adjacent antigens.
Agglutination is commonly used as a method of identifying specific bacterial antigens and in turn identity the bacteria.
