Biographical Memoirs Volume 85 (2004) / Chapter Skim
Currently Skimming:
Elvin A. Kabat
Elvin A. Kabat
Pages 98-123
The Chapter Skim interface presents what we've algorithmically identified as the most significant single chunk of text within every page in the chapter.
Select key terms on the right to highlight them within pages of the chapter.
From page 98... ...
by 1983 1, Volume , Immunology of Review Annual the from permission with Reviews Reprinted Annual
|
From page 99... ...
Elucidation of structures of the major blood group antigens, embryonic-stage-specific carbohydrate antigens, and functional carbohydrate markers of leukocyte subsets were either achieved by him and his associates, or made possible through meticulously characterized, invaluable compounds he generously made available to other investigators. His more than 470 publications span a period of 65 years.
|
From page 100... ...
He made seminal contributions to the development of an animal model of multiple sclerosis (Kabat et al., 1946, 1947, 1948) and of a diagnostic test based upon elevated levels of gamma globulin he found in cerebrospinal fluid (1948)
|
From page 101... ...
A major conclusion emerging from this work was that the same antibody molecules could agglutinate particulate antigens, such as pneumococci bearing capsular polysaccharide and precipitate soluble pneumococcal polysaccharide (1936)
|
From page 102... ...
Michael Heidelberger suggested that Kabat do postdoctoral training with Arne Tiselius and Kai Pederson in the Svedberg laboratory in Uppsala, Sweden, where the new methods of ultracentrifugation and electrophoresis were being developed. Elvin received a postdoctoral fellowship sponsored by the Rockefeller Foundation.
|
From page 103... ...
, he was working with Michael Heidelberger on quantitative immunochemistry of bacterial polysaccharides, when he read a paper published by Karl Landsteiner and Merrill Chase in 1936 in the Journal of Experimental Medicine describing the presence of blood group A substance in commercial pepsin. Kabat was stimulated by this report, knowing how little antigenic material can be obtained from red cells.
|
From page 104... ...
Walter Morgan and colleagues in the United Kingdom had shown that large amounts of blood group substances occur in human ovarian cyst fluids, and they had developed methods for their isolation. Ernest Witebsky and colleagues had succeeded in producing high titer antiA and anti-B sera by immunizing volunteers with hog A and horse B substances isolated from gastric epithelia.
|
From page 105... ...
This work opened the way to the elucidation of several blood-group-related carbohydrate antigens, later to be referred to as carbohydrate differentiation antigens, whose expressions change sequentially from the earliest stages of embryogenesis right through differentiation events in adulthood, and also in oncogenesis. Among these are the I and i antigens expressed on specific parts of the backbones of this family of oligosaccharides, and the Lex and Ley antigens expressed as capping structures (Feizi, 1985)
|
From page 106... ...
. In addition to immunochemical studies of meningococcal meningitis that included immunization of medical student volunteers with meningococcal polysaccharide (Kabat et al., 1947)
|
From page 107... ...
He served on several different advisory panels for the National Research Council, the Office of Naval Research, and the National Science Foundation, as well as for private foundations, including the National Multiple Sclerosis Society, American Foundation for Allergic Diseases, New York Blood Center, Roche Institute of Molecular Biology, Institute of Cancer Research, and Gorgas Memorial Laboratory, Panama. He was a member of the World Health Organization Advisory Panel on Immunology from 1965 to 1989.
|
From page 108... ...
linked dextran and human antidextran antibodies by members of the isomaltose series of oligosaccharides between 2 and 7 monosaccharide units in length demonstrated that the upper limit of the combining site size was equivalent to a hexasaccharide (isomaltohexaose)
|
From page 109... ...
. The finding of groove-type antidextran combining sites also helped to explain earlier studies of precipitating antibodies to type III pneumococcal polysaccharide (SIII)
|
From page 110... ...
Among the lectins studied were those from Helix pomatia, Dolichos biflorus, Griffonia simplicifolia, several marine sponges, and the chicken hepatic lectin (the last with Gilbert Ashwell of the National Institutes of Health)
|
From page 111... ...
William Raub of the NIH Division of Research Resources brought the PROPHET computer system to his attention and introduced Kabat to Howard Bilofsky of Bolt, Beranek, and Newman. This was the start of the database referred to earlier that was eventually published in five printed editions starting in 1976, when only amino acid sequences of variable regions were included, and extending through a three-volume fifth edition.
|
From page 112... ...
that defined variability as the ratio of the number of different amino acids at a given position to the frequency of the most common amino acid at that position. The paper suggested that hypervariable regions within antibody variable region sequences would contribute to antibody complementarity.
|
From page 113... ...
provided evidence indicating independent assortment of framework and complementarity-determining segments of the variable regions of rabbit light chains. Now, from examination of rabbit germline V sequences it appears that what they observed was due both to gene conversions that occurred during evolution of the multiple V
|
From page 114... ...
His contributions to understanding the nature of the antibody combining site and of antibodies that cross react with different carbohydrate antigens (1942) , carbohydrates and DNA (1985, 1986)
|
From page 115... ...
We thank Denong Wang for providing a copy of the notarized document appointing him curator of Kabat's research materials. We also gratefully acknowledge critical suggestions and comments from family members and from colleagues, including Gilbert Ashwell, George Johnson, Ken Lloyd, Nancy McCartney-Francis, Mike Mage, David Margulies, Donald Marcus, Barbara Newman, William Paul, and Tai Te Wu, as well as permissions from the Glycoconjugate Journal to publish excerpts from the obituary of Elvin Kabat and from the Annual Review of Immunology to republish the photograph of Elvin Kabat that appeared in part I of his autobiography (1983)
|
From page 116... ...
V Amino acid composition of antidextrans of the same and of differing speci ficities from several individuals.
|
From page 117... ...
1980. Evidence indicating independent assortment of framework and complementarity determining segments of the variable regions of rabbit light chains.
|
From page 118... ...
1962. Specific fractionation of a population of antidextran molecules with combining sites of vari ous sizes.
|
From page 119... ...
An electrophoretic study of immune sera and puri fied antibody preparations.
|
From page 120... ...
Studies of acute disseminated en cephalomyelitis produced experimentally in rhesus monkeys.
|
From page 121... ...
Wu. An analysis of the sequences of the variable regions of Bence Jones proteins and myeloma light chains and their im plications for antibody complementarity.
|
From page 122... ...
linked poly-N-acetylneuraminic acid, the capsular polysaccharide of group B meningococci and Escherichia coli K1, which cross reacts with polynucleotides and with denatured DNA.
|
From page 123... ...
Frequent occurrence of identical heavy and light chain Ig rearrangements.
|
Key Terms
This material may be derived from roughly machine-read images, and so is provided only to facilitate research.
More
information on Chapter Skim is available.