Explain the statement “All immunogens are antigens, but not all antigens are imunogens.”
" All immunogens are antigens, but not antigens are immunogens"
For example, steroid hormones merely cannot be used as immunogens in the host for antibody production. Steroids are low molecular weight haptens which act as an antigen in the host but unable to elicit antibody in the host.
For a substance to be immnunogenic, it should be foreign, have high molecular weight,complex in nature,better to be protein.
Some molecules called haptens,they are foreign but small in size and not proteinsThey are not immunogenic but when coupled to a larger carrier protein,they become immunogenic. ex:penicillin.
in simple words, An immunogen is a molecule which can elicit immune response by immune system, where antigen refers to a molecule that may be a surface one that can bind to the product of this response like an antibody. So, an immunogenic molecule should be an antigen, while an antigen may not be immunogenic.
Anything foreign is an antigen and may or may not elicit an antibody response largely because of its size and composition. When an antigen elicits a humoral immune response following immunization (or in vivo expression), that antigen is considered immunogenic. Immunogenic means the capacity of an antigen to produce an immune response i.e. antibody production.
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