Monoclonal antibodies are artificially designed to target one specific pathogen. Normal antibodies are made during the adaptive immune response.
You need to know about monoclonal antibodies specifically in the concept of cancer treatments and autoimmune diseases. Monoclonal antibodies can be used to carry drugs to the cancer cells directly, or they can be used to flag cancer cells to be destroyed.
Normal antibodies have a similar function, my teacher gave us the acronym NO CAP in order to remember how they can work:
N - neutralisation, they’re able to bind to viruses and neutralise them (prevent them from binding to other cells and injecting their nucleic acid into them)
O - opsonisation, they can surround a pathogen/antigen and flag it for phagocytosis
C - complement proteins, they can attract complement proteins to the pathogen/antigen
A - agglutination, causes clotting
P - precipitation, I don’t understand this one myself but I think the name should explain enough
As for their structure, monoclonal antibodies and antibodies are the same. They consist of a large polypeptide chain (heavy) and a small polypeptide chain (light). It’s very common to see antibody diagrams in multiple choice questions, and one of the things they like to trip people up on is the position of the heavy and light chains. The light chain should be on the outside, and the large chain should be on the inside. They are joined via disulphide bonds.
Hope this was helpful!
