Shortly after I developed sore throat, cough, and congestion last week, a package of ‘Cold – Eeze’ materialized on my kitchen counter. The writing on the package of zinc-laden lozenges promised to ‘shorten your cold’, and noted that they were ‘clinically proven to reduce the duration of the common cold’. Do zinc lozenges have any …
Antibodies produced by infection with a virus, or after immunization with viral vaccines, are effective at preventing viral disease. However humans and higher primates contain “natural antibodies” which are present in serum before viral infection. Natural antibodies can activate the classical complement pathway leading to lysis of enveloped virus particles long before the adaptive immune …
Natural antibody protects against viral infection Read More »
Here at Columbia University Medical Center, all employees and students may receive, at no charge, influenza vaccine every year. I just went to the lobby of the Milstein Hospital, showed my ID, and received the seasonal influenza vaccine. Here is the proof: As I’ve written before, vaccine records provide interesting information. The medical center administration …
The classical complement pathway begins when the initiator protein C1q binds directly to the surface of a pathogen, or to an antibody that is bound to a microbe. There is a binding site for C1q on the Fc portion of antibody molecules. C1q can also recognize molecular patterns characteristic of pathogens, much like the Toll-like receptors. C1q binding …
The complement system is a collection of blood and cell surface proteins that is a major primary defense and a clearance component of innate and adaptive immune responses. At least 30 different complement proteins act sequentially to produce a wide ranges of activities, from cell lysis to augmentation of the adaptive response. The complement system …
Influenza A viruses tend to garner most of the attention, but let’s not forget that there are two other virus types, B and C. The enveloped influenza A virions have three membrane proteins (HA, NA, M2), a matrix protein (M1) just below the lipid bilayer, a ribonucleoprotein core (consisting of 8 viral RNA segments and …
