Intravascular metabolism of normal and mutant mouse immunoglobulin molecules.

The metabolism of IgG immunoglobulins in the body is tightly regulated in order to maintain their intravascular concentration. Different subclasses may have different intravascular half-lives, and in the mouse, passively administered IgG2b disappears from the circulation more rapidly than IgG2a. We have attempted to localize the sequences in the constant region which are responsible for this difference by examining the intravascular metabolism of mutant immunoglobulins that were generated in tissue culture and have undergone deletions of individual constant region domains or contain different combinations of gamma 2b and gamma 2a CH2 and CH3 domains. Our results suggest that the regulation of intravascular metabolism is complex but indicate that sequences in the CH3 domain are important in determining the different intravascular half-lives of IgG2b and IgG2a antibodies in the mouse.