Question

Why does the body produce 5 different classes of antibodies?

Look at the question from evolutionary and practical perspectives.

What advantages/disadvantages do making different classes of antibodies have?

Answer 1

In the environment in which we live , we are exposed to a vast varieties of microbes each of which possess unique antigens whose entry in our body arouses an immune response.To fight against the antigens,our body produces antibodies and yes our body produces 5 different class of antibodies each based on differences in the amino acid sequences in the constant region of the heavy chains.The advantage is that each of the five classes of antibodies have specific target antigen and specific mechanism of action.While a particular class of antibody production in our body increases in response to a specific particular antigen,its production decreases when such antigen is absent.Similar is the case of all the other class of antibodies as well.