6 replies to this topic

[xxcici]

What is the difference between immunoglobulin and antibody?

[xxcici]

But why there are two words? There must be some difference.

[bob1]

There are many different types of immunoglobulin, these are referred to as Ig followed by a letter, for instance IgG or IgA and refers to all immunoglobulins of that type.  An antibody is raised against a specific antigen and will be a specific form of one of the immunoglobulins.

[xxcici]

Hi Bob, you are so versatile.

Can i say that IgG can be used to fight all bacterial or viral infection? And I see from a website that antibody is one of those IgA/M/G/D/E.
The website is http://www.webmd.com...immunoglobulins

[bob1]

Yes, IgG is used to fight infections, but I'm no immunologist, so I don't really know much more than that.  I do also know that IgM has something to do with infection, as its titre rises early in infection and then goes away.  I am sure Wikipedia has a good basic explanation of all of them.

[Tabaluga]

Agree with Bob and clinically speaking, if the IgM titre of a certain antibody is high, you can infer that the person has got a relatively fresh infection, still in its early phase, while a high IgG titre shows you that the person is either having that infection currently but not quite fresh - or had it once, built antibodies against it and is immune now.

[aimikins]

the different immunoglobulin classes are structurally different, and play different (but overlapping) roles. I would definitely check out Wiki; they seem to treat antibodies pretty well in general and it will explain the differences to you.