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Antigens Involved in Adaptive Immunity

Antigens Involved in Adaptive Immunity

An antigen is any substance the immune system identifies as foreign and potentially harmful to the body, prompting an immune response. Antigens have two functional properties: immunogenicity and reactivity. Immunogenicity is the ability of an antigen to stimulate a specific immune response. At the same time, reactivity describes the antigen's ability to react with the cells and antibodies produced in response to it.
Complete Antigens
Complete antigens possess both immunogenicity and reactivity.

T Cell Activation and Clonal Selection

T Cell Activation and Clonal Selection

T cells are integral to our adaptive immune system, recognizing and effectively responding to foreign antigens. T cell activation and clonal selection are pivotal in orchestrating this immune response. This article elucidates these mechanisms, detailing the roles of cluster of differentiation (CD) markers, major histocompatibility complex (MHC) molecules, costimulatory signals, and the process of clonal selection.
Naive T cells that have not yet encountered an antigen express two primary CD...

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Related Experiment Video

Updated: Jul 5, 2026

Visualizing Antigen Specific CD4+ T Cells using MHC Class II Tetramers

Visualizing Antigen Specific CD4+ T Cells using MHC Class II Tetramers

Published on: March 6, 2009

Monitoring antigen-specific T cells using MHC-Ig dimers.

J P Schneck¹, J E Slansky, S M O'Herrin

¹Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland, USA.

Current Protocols in Immunology

|April 25, 2008

Summary

Developing high-avidity MHC-Ig dimers enables precise identification of antigen-specific T cells. These novel reagents facilitate T cell staining and quantitation via flow cytometry, overcoming previous limitations.

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Published on: August 1, 2014

Area of Science:

Immunology
Molecular Biology
Flow Cytometry

Background:

Distinguishing T cells by antigen specificity is challenging due to the lack of high-affinity reagents.
Existing methods are limited in their ability to effectively isolate and quantify specific T cell populations.

Purpose of the Study:

To introduce protocols for constructing soluble multivalent Major Histocompatibility Complex (MHC)-Ig dimers.
To enable high-avidity binding to cognate T cell receptors for improved T cell detection.
To facilitate the quantitation of antigen-specific T cells using flow cytometry.

Main Methods:

Utilized innovations in molecular design to create MHC-Ig dimers.
Developed methods for constructing and detecting these MHC-Ig dimers.
Applied MHC-Ig dimers for staining antigen-specific T cells by flow cytometry.

Main Results:

MHC-Ig dimers exhibit stable binding properties with antigen-specific T cells.
These dimers demonstrate high avidity for cognate T cell receptors.
Successful application in the quantitation of antigen-specific T cells was achieved.

Conclusions:

Soluble multivalent MHC-Ig dimers are effective high-avidity reagents for T cell analysis.
These novel reagents overcome limitations in distinguishing T cells based on antigen specificity.
The protocols enable reliable detection and quantitation of antigen-specific T cells via flow cytometry.