Skip to main content
. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2016 Jun 14.
Published in final edited form as: Trends Immunol. 2015 Oct 19;36(11):709–724. doi: 10.1016/j.it.2015.09.008

Figure 1.

Figure 1

Mechanism of Action of Autoantibodies Penetrating Brain Tissue.

Autoantibodies that bind to cell surface proteins on glial cells or neuronal cells can induce complement-mediated cytotoxicity (CDC), which results in the formation of the membrane attack complex (MAC) (A). By contrast, antibody-dependent cell-mediated cytotoxicity (ADCC) is induced by Fc receptor-bearing effector cells that can lyse antibody-coated target cells (B). CDC and ADCC can result in cell death. Antibodies can interfere with the crosstalk of receptor signaling by acting as agonistic, antagonistic, or co-agonistic antibodies (C). Antibodies can cause receptor internalization following binding of their cell surface antigen, which leads to altered antigen density on the cell surface (D). Some brain-reactive antibodies will have no functional effect (E).