What are immunoglobulins and what do they do?
Immunoglobulins are proteins that are a normal part of the immune system. You'll see in pamphlets or in books that the term immunoglobulin is usually abbreviated as a capital I and a small g. There are multiple different classes of immunoglobulins that are designated by different letters of the alphabet. So there's an IgA and IgD, IgE, IgG, and IgM, and each of them has a slightly different function in helping the body to have different types of immune responses.
The most common type of immunoglobulin is the IgG format, and that's the one that's frequently seen, but not always in patients who have multiple myeloma as an abnormal monoclonal immunoglobulin. In myeloma, the plasma cells are all clones of each other and are all making exactly the same type of immunoglobulin, and this can be distinguished from the normal immunoglobulin polyclonal picture through some of the lab tests that we do, such as the electrophoresis and the immunofixation study.
Immunoglobulin is also known as an antibody. And typically our plasma cells create all different types of antibodies to fight against infection. In cases of multiple myeloma, there is irregular replication of a plasma cell. And rather than creating a bunch of different antibodies, one antibody is replicated over and over again. And it could also be termed in multiple myeloma as a monoclonal protein. It's this abnormal protein. So immunoglobulins or antibodies are composed of a heavy chain which can be IgG, IgA, IgM, and then you know, our immune system also forms IgD and IgE. But these are not really implicated in cases of multiple myeloma. And then also light chains which are kappa and lambda.
HealthTree • February 27, 2025
