Isoelectric focusing of human anti-diphtheria toxoid antibodies: identical spectrotypes of anti-fragment A antibodies with the same IgG subclass and light chain constant regions are expressed in multiple individuals.

The serum antibodies from humans booster-immunized with diphtheria toxoid were analyzed by isoelectric focusing. To restrict the antibody response, we visualized those antibodies that reacted to the Fragment A moiety of diphtheria toxin. Of the 100 normal human donors examined, 20 were estimated to be nonresponders to Fragment A. Sixty-three of the 80 donors who responded to Fragment A had restricted IgG-anti-Fragment A spectrotypes that consisted of three to eight distinct bands. Six series of repeat or shared spectrotypes were delineated among our donor population with repeat frequencies ranging from 0.025 to 0.312. We determined that the repeat spectrotypes were IgG1-kappa anti-Fragment A antibodies. Three percent of our donors had complex IgG-anti Fragment A spectrotypes consisting of greater than 10 bands. In some instances, the complex spectrotypes were composed of simple spectrotypes found among other donors. The complex IgG-anti Fragment A spectrotypes of these donors consisted of both IgG1 and IgG4-anti-Fragment A antibodies. From a statistical analysis, we calculate that only a limited number of IgG-anti-Fragment A spectrotypes are expressed in vivo after booster immunization. Our analysis suggests two groups of IgG-anti-Fragment A spectrotypes exist in our donor population. One IgG-anti-Fragment A spectrotype group is expressed randomly, and a second group is preferentially expressed among individuals in our donor population.