Valency of immunoglobulins?

Question

Hello I am doing questions on different immunoglobulins for uni work. It has asked me to give the valency of various immunoglobulins. How do I go about finding this information? I know it refers to the number of binding sites but how do I figure out the valency? I know I can go onto wikipedia and search each respective immunoglobulin but what structures-residues-motifs etc are characteristic of the binding sites so I can maybe work these out from 3D images or amino acid sequences?

Thanks.

Anonymous · Accepted Answer

I guess valency refers to antigen binding sites on an immunoglobin.
Take a clear look on each immunoglobin structure and you can clearly figure it out.
IgM is pentamer so 10 antigen binding sites
IgA is dimer, so 4 antigen binding sites
IgE = IgG = IgD=2 (as these exist as monomers, having 2 antigen binding sites)

Anonymous · Answer

Valence, also known as valency or valency number, is a measure of the number of chemical bonds formed by the atoms of a given element. The concept was developed in the middle of the nineteenth century in an attempt to rationalize the formulae of different chemical compounds. Although it has fallen out of use in higher level work with the advances in the theory of chemical bonding, it is still widely used in elementary studies where it provides a heuristic introduction to the subject. sulfur has six valence

Valency of immunoglobulins?

2 Answers