Nguyen et al. reported the capacity of healthy donors’ sera to bind and kill human

leukemic cells and activated T cells that were exogenously fed with Neu5Gc, but in these studies the detected cell death was mediated only by a complement-mediated mechanism [12]. The antibodies that recognized NeuGcGM3-expressing cells were of the IgM isotype. The IgM fraction isolated from one of the healthy donor’s sera retained the capacity to induce complement-independent death of the tumor cells. To our knowledge, this is the first report of anti-NeuGcGM3 antibodies that are able to induce the oncotic cell death of learn more antigen-expressing tumor cells without the necessity of any other immune component. These results suggest the existence of antibodies with antitumor potential, which could contribute to tumor immune surveillance. It is interesting to observe that the levels of anti-NeuGcGM3 click here antibodies decreased as the age of the donors increased. Not only is the level of anti-NeuGcGM3 antibodies lower

in elderly donors, but also the percentage of responding donors decreases with age. An age-associated decrease in antibody levels against foreign antigens was first reported more than 70 years ago [35], supporting the idea of an immune deficiency state in the elderly. However, this seems to be a phenomenon dependent on the nature of the antigen and the cells involved in the different responses, since other studies have shown that the concentration of serum antibodies against a variety of self-antigens such as thyroglobulin, DNA, and IgG, increases with age [36]. In fact our results demonstrate that the total amount of IgG and IgM

did not decrease with age, suggesting that it is not the amount of antibodies but the Fludarabine in vitro antibody repertoire that changes with age. One possible explanation for the decrease in antibody levels with increasing age involves an impaired capacity of T cells to facilitate the maturation of B cells in the periphery and the generation of a diverse B-cell repertoire from precursors within the bone marrow [37]. According to this theory, the response against T-independent antigens should not be affected by age [38]. However, the antibody response against not only NeuGcGM3 but also against other tumor related gangliosides (T-independent antigens), significantly decrease with increasing donor age [19]. Another possibility could be a reduction in the B-cell population responsible for the production of naturally occurring antibodies. Recently, Griffin et al. described a human B-cell population equivalent to mouse B1 cells [39], the main source of murine natural antibodies [40]. These researchers showed that human B1 cells decline with age.