Antibody Structure

Lesson 3 of 5 • 0 upvotes • 9:28mins

Sajidha Mohammed

This lesson is about the structure of an antibody. Antibody has a Y shaped structure with 2 identical light chains and heavy chains. Both the light chain and heavy chain have variable as well as constant region.The light chain is of two types :lambda or kappa, where as the heavy chain is of five types:alpha -IgA, gamma-IgG, delta-IgD, epsilon-IgE and mu-IgM.They are variably present at different places and their mode of action also differs greatly. The variable end portion is called the N terminal region and the opposite end is called the C terminal region. The variable region has 110-130 amino acids whose changes results in diversity of the antibody. It is the variable portion that binds with an antigen and the other constant portion determines the biological activity.