ANTIGEN

Pronunciation (US):

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IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does antigen mean? 

• ANTIGEN (noun)
  The noun ANTIGEN has 1 sense:

1. any substance (as a toxin or enzyme) that stimulates an immune response in the body (especially the production of antibodies)

  Familiarity information: ANTIGEN used as a noun is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• ANTIGEN (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Any substance (as a toxin or enzyme) that stimulates an immune response in the body (especially the production of antibodies)

Classified under:

Nouns denoting substances

Hypernyms ("antigen" is a kind of...):

substance (a particular kind or species of matter with uniform properties)

Meronyms (parts of "antigen"):

antigenic determinant; determinant; epitope (the site on the surface of an antigen molecule to which an antibody attaches itself)

Domain category:

immunology (the branch of medical science that studies the body's immune system)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "antigen"):

immunizing agent; immunogen (any substance or organism that provokes an immune response (produces immunity) when introduced into the body)

agglutinogen (any substance that acts as an antigen to cause agglutinin production)

fetoprotein; foetoprotein (any of several antigens that occur naturally in the fetus and sometimes in adults with cancer)

anatoxin; toxoid (a bacterial toxin that has been weakened until it is no longer toxic but is strong enough to induce the formation of antibodies and immunity to the specific disease caused by the toxin)

Rh; Rh factor; rhesus factor (a blood group antigen possessed by Rh-positive people; if an Rh-negative person receives a blood transfusion from an Rh-positive person it can result in hemolysis and anemia)

Derivation:

antigenic (of or relating to antigens)

 Context examples 

It is an 18kDa melanocyte differentiation antigen.

(Melan-A, NCI Thesaurus)

Also called MART-1 antigen and Melanoma Antigen Recognized by T cells 1.

(Melan-A protein, NCI Dictionary)

A vaccine consisting of the melanocyte differentiation antigen Melan A (also called MART-1) encapsulated in noninfectious virus-like particles (VLP) with potential immunostimulating and antineoplastic activities.

(Melan-A VLP Vaccine, NCI Thesaurus)

CEA, a tumor-associated antigen, is overexpressed in various tumor cell types.

(Adenoviral Vector Ad5-CEA(6D) Vaccine, NCI Thesaurus)

A white blood cell, differentiated in the thymus, activated by an antigen that causes the cell to preferentially migrate to the skin.

(Activated Skin-Homing T-Lymphocyte, NCI Thesaurus)

Deliberate stimulation of a host's immune response via administration of antigens or immunologic adjuvants.

(Active Immunization, NCI Thesaurus)

The release of tumor-associated antigens (TAA) by dying tumor cells may then stimulate an antitumor cytotoxic T lymphocyte (CTL) response, directed aganst any remaining tumor cells.

(Ad-hCMV-TK, NCI Thesaurus)

These “biomarker signatures” outperformed the predictive accuracy of the prostate-specific antigen (PSA) protein, which is currently used for making early diagnoses of prostate cancer.

(Biomarker Signatures of Prostate Cancer, NIH)

The tumor associated antigens Melan-A and MAGE-3 are overexpressed in a variety of cancer cell types.

(Melan-A/MAGE-3.DP4 Peptide Vaccine, NCI Thesaurus)

Melanoma-associated antigen C1 (1142 aa, ~124 kDa) is encoded by the human MAGEC1 gene.

(Melanoma-Associated Antigen C1, NCI Thesaurus)