A team from Stanford University, led by Taia Wang, MD, PhD, discovered “that the relative abundance of a certain kind of sugar molecule on our antibodies plays an outsized role in whether we become mildly ill rather than severely ill from a flu infection.”
The study’s findings were published November 13 in Immunity.
According to a release, “Wang’s study began by characterizing antibodies from people who did or did not become very sick after infection by H1N1, a common seasonal influenza subtype. The only significant difference the scientists observed between those who became mildly ill and those who were hospitalized was in the amount of sialic acid on infected individuals’ antibodies. High levels correlated with mild symptoms; sicker patients’ antibodies sported fewer sialic acid links.
Antibodies usually bind to pro-inflammatory receptors on alveolar macrophages, spurring downstream inflammatory activity. But higher levels of sialic acid on an antibody’s stalk, the scientists proved, induces the antibody to bind to CD209 instead, shifting alveolar macrophages’ mood to anti-inflammatory.”
