肠道蠕虫的免疫涉及CD4+ T细胞，但杀害或驱逐这种寄生虫的机制目前仍不十分清楚。在10月16日的《细胞—宿主与微生物》（Cell Host & Microbe）杂志上，McCoy等人报道，抗体在免疫肠道蠕虫幽门螺杆菌过程中发挥的重要作用。

幽门螺杆菌是小鼠中常见寄生虫，会导致慢性感染。最新研究发现，正常及感染幽门螺杆菌后的老鼠身上的多克隆IgG抗体，可以通过限制成年寄生虫产卵来发挥作用。相比之下，亲和力成熟的寄生虫特异性IgG和IgA抗体只有通过多次感染才能生成。

这些研究结果表明，多克隆与亲和力成熟的寄生虫特异性抗体之间在功能上有互补作用，它们分别执行限制肠道蠕虫繁殖与提供免疫保护的功能。McCoy等认为，寄生虫引起的多克隆抗体发挥了双重作用，即允许寄生虫缓慢感染的同时又在限制寄生虫的繁殖和扩散，这很可能反映了蠕虫寄生虫与宿主长期协同进化的结果。

推荐原始出处：

Cell Host & Microbe，Volume 4, Issue 4, 362-373, 16 October 2008，Kathy D. McCoy, Nicola L. Harris

Polyclonal and Specific Antibodies Mediate Protective Immunity against Enteric Helminth Infection

Kathy D. McCoy1,3,,,Maaike Stoel3,6,Rebecca Stettler4,Patrick Merky1,Katja Fink1,Beatrice M. Senn1,Corinne Schaer4,Joanna Massacand4,Bernhard Odermatt2,Hans C. Oettgen5,Rolf M. Zinkernagel1,Nicolaas A. Bos6,Hans Hengartner1,Andrew J. Macpherson1,3,7andNicola L. Harris1,4,7,,

1 Institute of Experimental Immunology, Department of Pathology, Universit?tsspital, CH8091 Zürich, Switzerland
2 Laboratory for Special Techniques, Institute for Clinical Pathology, Universit?tsspital, CH8091 Zürich, Switzerland
3 Department of Medicine, McMaster University, Hamilton, ON L8N 3Z5, Canada
4 Environmental Biomedicine, Institute of Integrative Biology, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, CH-8952 Schlieren, Switzerland
5 Division of Immunology, Children's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02115, USA
6 Department of Cell Biology, Section Immunology, 9713AV Groningen, The Netherlands

Anti-helminth immunity involves CD4⁺ T cells, yet the precise effector mechanisms responsible for parasite killing or expulsion remain elusive. We now report an essential role for antibodies in mediating immunity against the enteric helminth Heligmosomoides polygyrus (Hp), a natural murine parasite that establishes chronic infection. Polyclonal IgG antibodies, present in naive mice and produced following Hp infection, functioned to limit egg production by adult parasites. Comparatively, affinity-matured parasite-specific IgG and IgA antibodies that developed only after multiple infections were required to prevent adult worm development. These data reveal complementary roles for polyclonal and affinity-matured parasite-specific antibodies in preventing enteric helminth infection by limiting parasite fecundity and providing immune protection against reinfection, respectively. We propose that parasite-induced polyclonal antibodies play a dual role, whereby the parasite is allowed to establish chronicity, while parasite load and spread are limited, likely reflecting the long coevolution of helminth parasites with their hosts.