Résumé
Remerciements
Introduction
1. Introduction
1.1 Humoral immune response
1.1.1 The antibody - effector function, molecular structure, germline organisation of the immunoglobulin loci
1.1.2 Humoral immune response to thymus(T)-dependent antigens - overview
1.1.2.1 Antigen presentation and priming of helper T-cells
1.1.2.2 Activation of B-cells and formation of primary foci
1.1.2.3 Formation of germinal centers
1.1.3 Generation of antibody diversity - the germinal center reaction
1.2 Assessment of the humoral immune response
1.2.1 Antibody affinity
1.2.2 Antibody avidity
1.2.3 Immunoglobulin gene sequence
1.2.4 Biological activity of antibody
1.2.5 Relationships between different qualitative parameters of antibody responses
1.3 Maturation of the humoral immune response in early life
2. Material, Methods and Patients
2.1 Material
2.2 Methods
2.2.1 Determination of serum levels of TT-specific IgG antibodies
2.2.2 Determination of avidity of TT-specific IgG
1
serum antibody
2.2.3 Statistical analysis
2.3 Subjects and serum samples
3. Results
3.1 Development and validation of the ammonium isothiocyanate elution assay
3.1.1 Introduction
3.1.2 Resistance of the coating antigen TT to NH
4
SCN
3.1.3 Duration of NH
4
SCN incubation
3.1.4 Dilution of the serum sample
3.1.5 Reproducibility
3.2 Avidity maturation of TT-specific antibodies in children
3.2.1 Introduction
3.2.2 Avidity and age
3.2.2.1 Avidity index and age
3.2.2.2 High and low avidity fractions and age
3.2.3 Avidity and serum levels
3.3 Figures
4. Discussion
4.1 Potentially confounding factors
4.2 Comparison with other reports on the avidity of TT-specific antibodies
4.3 Kinetics of avidity maturation of TT-specific antibodies in children
4.4 Avidity testing in clinical medicine
5. References