Immune Complex Diseases

An immune complex is the combination of an epitope with an antibody directed against that epitope. The bound antigen and the binding antibody are referred to as a single entity in this state.

After an antigen-antibody reaction, the immune complexes can be subject to any of a number of responses, including complement deposition, opsonization, phagocytosis, or processing by proteases. Red blood cells carrying C3b-receptors transport C3b-decorated immune complexes to the phagocytes, leave their charge there, mostly in liver and spleen, and return back to the general circulation.

Immune complexes may themselves cause disease when they are deposited in organs, e.g. in certain forms of vasculitis. This is the third form of hypersensitivity in the Gell-Coombs classification, called Type III hypersensitivity.

Immune complex deposition is a prominent feature of several autoimmune diseases, including systemic lupus erythematosus, cryoglobulinemia, rheumatoid arthritis, scleroderma and Sjögren's syndrome.

External links

• immunecentral.com
• www.immune-complex.ch

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