Imagine your body is like a fortress, constantly under attack by invaders like bacteria and viruses. Inside this fortress, you have soldiers called B cells whose job is to make special weapons called antibodies to fight off these invaders.
In the 1970s, there was a lot of curiosity and puzzlement among scientists about how the immune system generates such a vast array of antibodies to fight off different invaders.
Imagine a group of scientists sitting around, scratching their heads, wondering: "How on earth does the body produce millions of different antibodies, each capable of recognizing and fighting off a specific enemy?"
Among those curious minds were Nobumichi Hozumi and Susumu Tonegawa, two brilliant scientists who conducted their groundbreaking experiment at the Basel Institute for Immunology in Switzerland. This prestigious institute, located in Basel, Switzerland, is a hub of cutting-edge research in immunology.
Inspired by previous studies hinting at the existence of separate genes for the "variable" and "constant" parts of antibodies, Hozumi and Tonegawa set out on their quest to unravel this mystery.
Armed with inspiration and a burning desire to uncover the secrets of the immune system, Hozumi and Tonegawa meticulously planned their experiment. They looked at DNA from two different sources: one from embryonic cells that weren't making antibodies yet, and another from a plasma tumor cell line, a type of grown-up cell, that was producing lots of antibodies.
Their plan was to use techniques like DNA purification and gel electrophoresis to examine the DNA closely and see how the pieces responsible for making antibodies were arranged.
What they found was mind-blowing! In the embryonic cell DNA, they discovered that the parts of the DNA responsible for making the "variable" (V) and "constant" (C) parts of antibodies were separate, like pieces of a puzzle waiting to be put together.
But in the tumor cell DNA, those puzzle pieces were joined together. It was like the blueprint for making antibodies had been rearranged to create a whole bunch of different combinations.
This groundbreaking discovery not only shed light on the mechanisms behind antibody diversity but also paved the way for future research in immunology and molecular biology. Thanks to the pioneering work of Hozumi and Tonegawa at the Basel Institute for Immunology, scientists gained a deeper understanding of how the immune system functions, leading to improved treatments and vaccines for diseases.
Their experiment, titled “Evidence for Somatic Rearrangement of Immunoglobulin Genes Coding for Variable and Constant Regions,” was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) in October 1976, solidifying their contribution to scientific knowledge.
Hozumi, N., & Tonegawa, S. (1976). Evidence for somatic rearrangement of immunoglobulin genes coding for variable and constant regions. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 73(10), 3628–3632. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.73.10.3628
(Rehash/Krisha Shah/SB)