Abstract
Many bacteria have the ability to interact with antibodies as a means to circumvent the immune response. This includes binding to the Fc portion of antibodies, effectively reversing the antibody orientation and thus decreasing the Fc-mediated immune signaling. Since antibody orientation at the bacterial surface has been shown to be important in human disease, it is valuable to be able to assess how antibodies are interacting with bacterial pathogens. Here, we describe a method to measure the proportion of human IgG that are bound via their Fc or Fabs to a bacterial surface. This is achieved by treating antibody-coated bacteria with the bacterial enzyme IdeS – which will cleave IgG into Fc and Fab fragments – and subsequently detect remaining fragments with fluorescent Fabs. The method is easy and fast, and the principle is most likely also applicable to other systems where distinguishing between antibody Fc and Fab binding is important.
Key words
- IgG
- Bacteria
- Flow cytometry
- IgG-binding proteins
- IdeS
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Acknowledgments
This work was supported by the Crafoord Foundation, the Swedish Research Council, and the Swedish Society of Medicine.
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Shannon, O., Nordenfelt, P. (2017). Measuring Antibody Orientation at the Bacterial Surface. In: Nordenfelt, P., Collin, M. (eds) Bacterial Pathogenesis. Methods in Molecular Biology, vol 1535. Humana Press, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4939-6673-8_22
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4939-6673-8_22
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Publisher Name: Humana Press, New York, NY
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