Induction of the antibody response.

Date:
1974
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Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)

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Credit

Induction of the antibody response. Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0). Source: Wellcome Collection.

About this work

Description

Dr Melvyn Greaves lectures on how antibodies are produced; as he mainly discusses this from a cellular level, the lecture is quite technical in content. The study is based on experiments in mice, in tissue culture and in vitro experiments. Greaves is keen to point out that, vital to the process of antibody production, is the issue of cell collaboration between the macrophages (white blood cells within tissues), T lymphocytes and B lymphocytes (white blood cells in the immune system).

Publication/Creation

London : University of London Audio-Visual Centre, 1974.

Physical description

1 encoded moving image (33.44 min.) : sound, black and white.

Duration

00:33:44

Copyright note

University of London

Terms of use

Unrestricted
CC-BY-NC
Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial 2.0 UK: England & Wales

Language note

In English

Creator/production credits

Presented by Dr Melvyn Greaves. Produced by Peter Bowen and David Sharp. Made for British Postgraduate Medical Federation. Made by University of London Audio-Visual Centre.

Notes

This video is one of around 310 titles, originally broadcast on Channel 7 of the ILEA closed-circuit television network, given to Wellcome Trust from the University of London Audio-Visual Centre shortly after it closed in the late 1980s. Although some of these programmes might now seem rather out-dated, they probably represent the largest and most diversified body of medical video produced in any British university at this time, and give a comprehensive and fascinating view of the state of medical and surgical research and practice in the 1970s and 1980s, thus constituting a contemporary medical-historical archive of great interest. The lectures mostly take place in a small and intimate studio setting and are often face-to-face. The lecturers use a wide variety of resources to illustrate their points, including film clips, slides, graphs, animated diagrams, charts and tables as well as 3-dimensional models and display boards with movable pieces. Some of the lecturers are telegenic while some are clearly less comfortable about being recorded; all are experts in their field and show great enthusiasm to share both the latest research and the historical context of their specialist areas.

Contents

Segment 1 Greaves speaks to the camera. He introduces his subject by saying that the antibodies produced when experimental animals are injected with antigen are of especial interest for this talk, and that he will be specifically focusing on the cellular basis of this antibody response. He describes how the process of antibody production involves cell collaboration between macrophages, T and B lymphocytes and that this collaborative process will be the main theme of his discourse. Greaves goes on to talk about two technical advances which have made the study of antibodies more viable: the availability of marker systems to make the differentiation of cell populations more visible, and the second is the refinement of tissue culture methods. To illustrate how these two techniques function, Greaves refers to charts detailing the Marbrook chamber, a popular method of tissue culture, commonly used to measure antibody responses. He describes its anatomy in depth and shows, through diagrams, how it works. Time start: 00:00:00:00 Time end: 00:05:19:00 Length: 00:05:19:00
Segment 2 Greaves describes the method of 'local haemolysis in gel', used also to detect antibody responses in tissue cells. He refers to a chart detailing the technique and describes some of the results one might expect to see from it. Greaves moves on to discuss the collaborative nature of cells leading to the production of antibodies. He describes how taken individually neither T nor B lymphocytes produce antibodies, but combinations of them do. He refers to work on bone marrow cells to illustrate this. Time start: 00:05:19:00 Time end: 00:10:38:00 Length: 00:05:19:00
Segment 3 Not only do T and B lymphocytes combine to produce antibody, Greaves now shows how macrophages are also an important factor. Exactly how this occurs, he admits, is not known, but he highlights one current hypothesis. Referring again to the charts showing the Marbrook chamber, Greaves outlines in much detail some experiments by Feldman to show the role of macrophages in T-B interactions. Time start: 00:10:38:00 Time end: 00:15:00:00 Length: 00:04:22:00
Segment 4 Greaves continues to discuss Feldman's research into different models of cell interaction in order to produce antibody. He shows further detailed diagrams to illustrate one of Feldman's experiments, then goes on to discuss a further experiment from 1969 by Mitchison and Rajewsky which looks at antibody responses to haptens - the small molecules that can elicit an immune response when attached to a protein. He shows diagrams detailing this experiment and compares the results with those of Feldman's research. Time start: 00:15:00:00 Time end: 00:20:49:00 Length: 00:05:49:00
Segment 5 Greaves talks about certain antigens which do not seem to require the complex interactions of T and B lymphocytes or macrophages in order to produce antibody. He focuses on three examples: polysaccharides (for example pneumococcal polysaccharide), salmonella flagellin and synthetic amino acids. He explains the common properties of these three examples and describes, in detail, their function. Time start: 00:20:49:00 Time end: 00:26:57:00 Length: 00:06:08:00
Segment 6 Greaves explains how the three examples above can trigger T and B cells directly, a system called second signals; one to trigger antigen responses and the second to stimulate antibody. He refers to research by Antonio Coutinho on this subject, although he admits that this research is, as yet, 'controversial.' Greaves ends the lecture in a somewhat apologetic manner, he apologises for the complicated nature of the systems he has been discussing. However, he stresses that as this is such a crucial mechanism it is worth the effort of further research. He ends by reminding us that with cell collaboration in antibody production one should think of the B cell is the producer cell and the T cell as the regulator cell controlling the B cell response. Time start: 00:26:57:00 Time end: 00:33:44:24 Length: 00:06:47:24

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