Abstract
Much of the pioneering work on antibody structure was performed by Porter (1959) using the proteolytic enzymes pepsin and papain. Figure I illustrates the fragments formed by these enzymes and these have been of enormous value in elucidating the structure/function relationships within IgG. The primary function of IgG is regarded as being the interaction with and clearance of antigen, the functional site residing in the Fab arms. However, each immunoglobulin class also participates in equally important class-restricted effector functions (reviewed by Burton, 1985). These effector sites are typically located within the Fc portion of the molecule. Over the last ten years, considerable advances have been made in determining the structure of Fc and computer modelling systems are now available based on the original crystallographic work of Deisenhofer etal. (1976; 1981). This has facilitated further studies localising specific sites of functional interaction with Fc.
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