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The immune system presumably has a limited capacity of circulating antibodies. By introducing new antibodies, do we reduce the amount of previous antibodies, an
by danarmak 6y ago
The immune system presumably has a limited capacity of circulating antibodies. By introducing new antibodies, do we reduce the amount of previous antibodies, and does this reduce their immune response? Is there a concept or metric of "antibody dilution"?
- Retric 6y agoAntibody production ramps up and down rapidly, it’s memory cells that get altered by vaccines. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immunological_memory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immunological_memory That said the immune system is extremely complex, but here is a simplified version, which gives a reasonable overview: https://microbenotes.com/cells-of-the-immune-system/ https://microbenotes.com/cells-of-the-immune-system/
- dannyw 6y agoWhile correlation is not causation, I find it interesting that the human immune system only remembers the common cold and seasonal influenza for several months, but diseases like the polio for much longer. https://biology.stackexchange.com/a/21802 https://biology.stackexchange.com/a/21802
- TylerE 6y ago"The common cold" is a loose nebula of hundreds of different, unrelated, virus strains. They're not even all the same TYPE of virus.