Read on Twitter
There is a lot more to the #alphagal immune response than #foodallergy and drug hypersensitivity reactions. This paper explores the role of anti-gal in protection against pneumococcal infections. https://twitter.com/microbe_article/status/1340552879506075648
2/ What's really interesting about this paper is this: "All known pneumococcal capsular polysaccharides lack terminal galactose‐α‐1,3‐galactose, yet highly purified human anti‐αGal antibody of the IgG class reacted with 48 of 91 pneumococcal serotypes"
3/ And this: "Anti‐αGal was found to contain multiple antibody subsets that possess distinct specificities beyond their general reactivity w/ terminal galactose‐α‐1,3‐galactose." @scott_commins I wonder if this is ever true for alpha-gal IgE in addition to IgG.
4/ "Many enteric bacteria (~25% of strains) do indeed react with the anti-α-gal antibody; however, few commensals carry a gene encoding an α-1,3-galactosyl transferase, which suggests that the antibody binds bacteria by polyreactivity."
5/ "A polyreactive antibody has biologically relevant affinities for at least two distinct epitopes."
6/ "The capsular polysaccharides of some reactive serotypes are only marginally different from some unreactive serotypes. For instance..."
7/ "... the unreactive polysaccharide 33A contains two acetyl groups that are not found in the otherwise identical but reactive polysaccharide 33F48 , which suggests that the two acetyl groups block anti-α-gal binding."
8/ "Previously reported polyreactivity of anti-α-gal with human mucin peptides coincided with the binding of the αGalactosyl-reactive plant lectin Isolectin B4, suggesting that the antibody targets αGalactosyl-mimotopes."
