ABSTRACT
The immune system of a vertebrate organism is designed to respond specifically to an indefinite number of foreign molecules. Specific modulation of the immune system either by enhancement of wanted immune responses or by suppression of unwanted responses is a major goal of clinical immunologists. Antigen competes with the idiotopes of anti-idiotypic receptors for the corresponding paratactic idiotopes and, depending on the affinity of the antigen-paratope vs. the anti-Id -idiotope interaction, disrupts the network. T-cell receptors fail to recognize soluble foreign antigen, but require corecognition of self-cell-surface markers which are encoded for by genes of the major histocompatibility complex. T- and B-cell receptors are encoded for by different genes which evolved from a common primordial cell surface protein. Both receptors consist of two chains, heavy and light chain for immunoglobulin’s and Þ and ß chain for T-cell receptors, which are linked by disulfide bridges. In a common network, T-cell videotapes would be expected to resemble B-cell videotapes.
