Idiotypy in Biology and Medicine aims to serve the increasing interest and involvement in the practical aspects of idiotypy in biological systems. The concept of idiotypy has received wide recognition and interest far beyond the area of immunology. Experiments and interpretation of findings, reported here, clearly support the general nature of the idiotype concept in manipulating biological systems to correct pathological conditions or to improve the immune adaptation to environmental factors. The book is organized into three sections. Section 1 discusses original concepts of idiotypic manipulations. It reviews old and recent data important for the concept of an idiotype network and reports on attempts to deal with the T-cell receptor paradox; explains the immune system in terms of a circular idiotype network that can be demonstrated by sequential immunization; and emphasizes the need for restrictions in network interactions. Section 2 addresses the role and activity of idiotypic and antiidiotypic antibodies in the regulation of the immune system. Section 3 takes the issue of idiotype-antiidiotype out of the realm of the immune system and discusses it as a new principle to analyze and manipulate biological systems in general.

The phenomenon of idiotypy was discovered almost thirty years ago, but it was only during the past decade that it attracted widespread interest and became the subject of numerous research investigations. From the outset, much of the interest in idiotypy was based on its implications with respect to the repertoire of antibodies. Kunkel showed, for example, that idiotypes associated with certain human myeloma or Bence-Jones proteins were present in normal human globulins at levels of less than one part per million. Also, Oudin's original definition of idiotypy implied that idiotypes could be uniquely associated with individual rabbits as well as with particular antigen-binding specificities. Such observations provided some of the earliest evidence for an extensive repertoire of immunoglobulin molecules. The implications of these findings have been amply confirmed by recent studies of protein struc ture and molecular genetics; many of these studies are reviewed in the present volume. It is known now that the diversity of antibodies is based on the presence of numerous V and L V H genes, on recombinatorial events involving D and] segments, on somatic mutations, and on processes involving deletion of DNA followed by repair with errors, including inser tions. Each of these parameters is capable of influencing the idiotype expressed by the final immunoglobulin product. Regulation of the immune response is another area in which idiotypy has significantly influenced modern immunology.

Here is an up-to-date review of important new methods and results in anti-idiotypes, receptors, and molecular mimicry. It begins with a discussion of the theoretical background of the anti-idiotypic network, it's role in the regulation of immune response, and the physical characteristics of anti-idiotypic antibodies. It then goes on to explore many exciting applications in such areas as insulin action, thyroid cell function, the neurosciences, cardiology, virology, pharmacology, and reproduction.