Honestly, I don't know much about these assays, so I looked up more. The Lapuente, et al. paper helped since they noted the differences in their in-house method relative to the available ELISA assay.
This only works if the new IgG4 study utilized this assay for several of their experiments rather than their in-house method, although they didn't describe in detail which one they used when. I believed they mentioned once when they used the EUROIMMUN ELISA platform but that doesn't say much about the other times. 🤷♂️
The differing methodologies stuff is a bit over my head but suggests that the effects are very real, when 2 different teams and methods find the same kind of result?
So they both suggest that IgG4 subclass shifting is occurring. The question is figuring out how much of the memory B cells are class shifting. This is important if we are to argue that the prevalence of IgG4 is concerning, because there's likely to be some value at which it is extremely harmful.
Put another way, 5-10% prevalence relative to the other subclasses may actually not mean much, but 30-40% may be when it ends up not being protective. The importance is figuring out what that value should be, and so far this study provides a relative suggestion that IgG4 is present, but not to what degree.
The Irrgang, et al. study provided some quantitative measures, but like I stated in my other posts on IgG4 a lot of the numbers seem to be influenced by one "37%er" outlier where a few people were in the 20s and most were in the teens. Then that comes with the fact that both studies used different methods with the Irrgang, et al. study being more sensitive so that also needs to be factored in as well.
So right now IgG4 class shifting is occurring, but the degree to which this is a concern is still largely unknown I would argue.
Thank you! The IgA and IgG2 stuff is worth looking into, but it's important to make sure that we know that everything is ambiguous right now. We don't know how much IgG4 is actually making up many of the vaccinees right now and when looking up this study it's important to not forget that the scaling is completely different between graphs. Even the prior study uses a logarithmic scale on their y-axis so it's counting by a power of 1- for each main move up.
Thanks for this great post. It is so valuable to have people like you who know so much about the details of studies, the methodologies used, etc. 👍🏽💕
Honestly, I don't know much about these assays, so I looked up more. The Lapuente, et al. paper helped since they noted the differences in their in-house method relative to the available ELISA assay.
This only works if the new IgG4 study utilized this assay for several of their experiments rather than their in-house method, although they didn't describe in detail which one they used when. I believed they mentioned once when they used the EUROIMMUN ELISA platform but that doesn't say much about the other times. 🤷♂️
The differing methodologies stuff is a bit over my head but suggests that the effects are very real, when 2 different teams and methods find the same kind of result?
So they both suggest that IgG4 subclass shifting is occurring. The question is figuring out how much of the memory B cells are class shifting. This is important if we are to argue that the prevalence of IgG4 is concerning, because there's likely to be some value at which it is extremely harmful.
Put another way, 5-10% prevalence relative to the other subclasses may actually not mean much, but 30-40% may be when it ends up not being protective. The importance is figuring out what that value should be, and so far this study provides a relative suggestion that IgG4 is present, but not to what degree.
The Irrgang, et al. study provided some quantitative measures, but like I stated in my other posts on IgG4 a lot of the numbers seem to be influenced by one "37%er" outlier where a few people were in the 20s and most were in the teens. Then that comes with the fact that both studies used different methods with the Irrgang, et al. study being more sensitive so that also needs to be factored in as well.
So right now IgG4 class shifting is occurring, but the degree to which this is a concern is still largely unknown I would argue.
Thanks for adding more context and keeping a level head.
Thank you! The IgA and IgG2 stuff is worth looking into, but it's important to make sure that we know that everything is ambiguous right now. We don't know how much IgG4 is actually making up many of the vaccinees right now and when looking up this study it's important to not forget that the scaling is completely different between graphs. Even the prior study uses a logarithmic scale on their y-axis so it's counting by a power of 1- for each main move up.
The author wrote "snuff out" where the apparent intention was "sniff out". Utterly different meanings!
Well, a difference a vowel will make! I'll make a correction!