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Anti-body question

Triplets

22:29 / 13.05.04

Why are they called ANTI-bodies? I mean, they're not against the body are they? That's where they live!

LykeX

23:28 / 13.05.04

I think he reason is that they are complemetary to something. They bind to whatever they are specific against and are thus anti- to, for example, a foreign body.

Honestly I have no idea, I'm just guessing.

grant

17:59 / 14.05.04

Yeah, my understanding is that it's "body" as in "foreign body" not as in YOUR body. It might also be body as a descriptor for them -- they are the bodies that work against (anti) intruders.

Tom Coates

12:54 / 16.05.04

Interestingly it's a translation from the German antikorper (dictionary.com), apparently - which is where we might be going wrong - conceptual drift across languages being fairly common. Tycho knows a fair amount about German - I'd be interested to know if Korper (umlaut removed for simplcity) has a different set of meanings to the English "body"

Grey Area

08:54 / 18.05.04

I think that the origin of Antikörper can be traced to the word 'Fremdkörper' (lit. 'foreign body'). Hence, a virus, bacillus etc is a foreign body against which the human immune system launches antibodies.

Grey Area

09:03 / 18.05.04

In German, we use Körper to also refer to geometric shapes, chemical compounds, the main element of a larger object and the sum total of an individual or organisation's works. Generally, the uses parallel those of 'body' in the English language, however our use of compound nouns means that there probably exist highly specific terms that incorporate 'Körper', the concept of which would require more then one word to convey in English.

HeLLbLaZeR

20:29 / 19.05.04

Curiously, here in Brazil (portuguese language), antibodies means "anticorpos", very near to the german Antikörper.

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