Even a casual reader of newspapers and web sites will have noticed a massive increase in the reporting of allergies and of immune and autoimmune diseases like asthma, Crohn's Disease and multiple sclerosis over the last decades. The Hygiene hypothesis proposes that inadequate exposure to infectious organisms leads to immune dysfunction. Under normal circumstances, the immune system is exposed to various parasitic challenges and becomes properly calibrated to these real threats following successful defences. Within this context, the key players of the host-pathogen interactions are glycans. As the glycosylation pattern differs between insects, nematodes, plants, prokaryotes and mammals, it is challenging to produce specific recombinant antibodies against certain immunogenic or immunomodulatory glycan epitopes. Particularly nematode glycans are associated with dampening the immune response due to a uncommon phosphorylcholine (PC) modification of the glycans. Aim of the thesis is to clone, recombinantly express and purify an antibody targeting this special PC-epitope of nematodes.

 

 

 

 

DI Dr. Dieter Palmberger

 

Email: dieter.palmberger@boku.ac.at

 

 

 

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Ao. Univ. Prof .Dr. Iain B.H. Wilson