Activation of antibody Fc function by antigen-induced conformational changes.

IgM antibody directed against the pheny-beta-lactoside hapten was examined for its capacity to fix complement in the presence of the hapten, monohapten-substituted antigen, and multihapten-substituted antigen. Hapten was found to have no effect; monovalent antigen induced an excellent response which could be inhibited by hapten; and multivalent antigen also induced an excellent response which was related to the number of determinants added and not to the formation of antigen-antibody aggregates. The difference between the activities of hapten and monovalent antigen was reflected in their affinities for the IgM antibody. The monovalent antigen had a lower Ka, indicating that energy from binding was used to activate the Fc complement binding sites. These data show that the expression of IgM Fc function depends on a change in Fc conformation produced by the binding of antigen at the distant Fab combining sites.