iC3b receptor and antibody formation

This review discusses evidence, derived from three patients and some animal studies, on the relationship between complement, complement receptors and antibody formation. These patients (as "experiments of nature") supplemented by the animal data, confirm the importance of C3 and the iC3b receptor in the full expression of the humoral immune response. Presumably the role affects the presentation of antigen. The timing, as seen in the guinea-pig experiments, suggests that the effect is in the initial presentation of the antigen at the time of induction of the primary response and determines the nature of the secondary response to antigen several weeks later. The primary and secondary humoral immune responses appear to be a single continuum rather than two separate steps in the same process.