Correlations between Antibody Immune Responses at Different Mucosal Effector Sites Are Controlled by Antigen Type and Dosage

Abstract

Monitoring specific secretory immunoglobulin A (IgA) responses in the intestines after mucosal immunization or infection is impeded by the fact that sampling of small intestinal secretions requires invasive methods not feasible for routine diagnostics. Since IgA plasma cells generated after intragastric immunization are known to populate remote mucosal sites as well, secretory IgA responses at other mucosal surfaces may correlate to those in the intestines and could serve as proxy measures for IgA secretion in the gut. To evaluate the practicability of this approach, mice were immunized intragastrically with 0.2, 2, and 20 mg of ovalbumin plus 10 g of cholera toxin, and the antigen-specific local secretory IgA responses in duodenal, ileal, jejunal, rectal, and vaginal secretions, saliva, urine, and feces, as well as serum IgG and IgA responses were analyzed by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay. Correlation analysis revealed significant relationships between serum IgG and IgA, urinary IgA, salivary IgA, and secretory IgA in duodenal, jejunal, ileal, and rectal secretions for the 0.2-mg but not for the 20-mg ovalbumin dose. Fecal samples were poor predictors for intestinal antiovalbumin IgA responses, and no correlations could be established for cholera toxin, neither between local anti-cholera toxin levels nor to the antiovalbumin responses. Thus, specific IgA in serum, saliva, or urine can serve as a predictor of the release of specific IgA at intestinal surfaces after intragastric immunization, but the lack of correlations for high ovalbumin doses and for cholera toxin indicates a strong dependency on antigen type and dosage for these relationships.

Fecal antibody levels as a noninvasive method for measuring immunity to gastrointestinal nematodes in ecological studies

“…Possessive associations between cholera‐toxin (CT) antigen‐specific circulating and mucosal antibody levels have also been reported in mice mucosally immunized with CT (Externest et al. 2000). In natural populations, sampling at the mucosal surface either postmortem or via cannulization is likely to be both highly impracticable and undesirable.…”

Asymptomatic oral human papillomavirus (HPV) infection in women with a histopathologic diagnosis of genital HPV

“…This finding reinforces the hypothesis that there is a mucosal immune system that connects different anatomic compartments. We surmised that anti-HPV Ig A was produced locally (1,(36)(37)(38). Studies have identified factors and behavioral habits that might facilitate viral infection by interfering with the integrity of the oral mucosa or the homeostatic balance in the buccal cavity.…”

Contribution of Serum Immunoglobulin Transudate to the Antibody Immune Status of Murine Intestinal Secretions: Influence of Different Sampling Procedures

“…Quantitation of total and specific immunoglobulins was carried out as described previously (2). Antibody cross-reactivities were determined under conditions analogous to those of the quantitation of total immunoglobulins as the ratios of the detection limits for the potentially cross-reacting analyte to those for the original target analyte.…”

“…For immunization, groups of six female BALB/c mice (age, 8 weeks; Charles River Wiga, Sulzfeld, Germany) were gavaged four times on days 0, 21, 35, and 49 with 0.2, 2, or 20 mg ovalbumin (Calbiochem, Bad Soden, Germany) plus 10 g of cholera toxin (List Biological Laboratories, Campbell, Calif.) in 300 l of 3% (wt/vol) sodium bicarbonate or with buffer alone (controls). Ten to 11 days after the last immunization, feces, blood, intestinal lavage fluid, and local intestinal secretions were collected and processed as described previously (2,6).…”