AUTHOR=Kieber-Emmons Thomas , Monzavi-Karbassi Bejatohlah , Pashov Anastas , Saha Somdutta , Murali Ramachandran , Kohler Heinz TITLE=The promise of the anti-idiotype concept JOURNAL=Frontiers in Oncology VOLUME=2 YEAR=2012 URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/oncology/articles/10.3389/fonc.2012.00196 DOI=10.3389/fonc.2012.00196 ISSN=2234-943X ABSTRACT=

A basic tenet of antibody-based immunity is their specificity to antigenic determinates from foreign pathogen products to abnormal cellular components such as in cancer. However, an antibody has the potential to bind to more than one determinate, be it an antigen or another antibody. These observations led to the idiotype network theory (INT) to explain immune regulation, which has wax and waned in enthusiasm over the years. A truer measure of the impact of the INT is in terms of the ideas that now form the mainstay of immunological research and whose roots are spawned from the promise of the anti-idiotype concept. Among the applications of the INT is understanding the structural implications of the antibody-mediated network that has the potential for innovation in terms of rational design of reagents with biological, chemical, and pharmaceutical applications that underlies concepts of reverse immunology which is highlighted herein.