Re: Can antibodies be transferred through kissing/saliva?

Roz,

When I first read your question my thought was that Men would probably benefit more by kissing women as women in general make more antibody. But, your statement that men have more antibody for HPV in their saliva gave me pause. From here on my answer will be entirely speculative as I have no data to support or refute your statement.

First, the reason why men may have antibodies to HPV in their saliva may depend on the man, his love making preferences and number of previous partners. In any case, a man with a high titer of of HPV specific antibodies in his saliva is not likely to be a good or steady partner for any woman and I would steer clear of this guy if I were you. Certainly, the minimal benefit of a pinch of IgA would be outweighed by the dangers of this guy's personal preferences and habits.

The amount of saliva that is transferred during soul kissing would most likely be less than a couple of teaspoonsful, hardly a significant contribution to that of the recipients own body. While secretions like saliva and tears contain fairly decent amounts of IgA the benefit would only be to the person secreting it as a teaspoonful would be diluted by the vastly larger amount of IgA in the recipient's own saliva.

Of all the antibody isotypes, IgA is produced in the largest amount. Teleologically, this is because IgA is constantly flowing out of the body in secretions and digestive products. The kiss recipient would need to be given a gift of antibody producing cells making the protective antibody in order to really have a benefit; and, I do not believe saliva contains antibody producing cell precursors and if it did none of these would survive entry into the recipient's stomach.

The IgA in saliva would be protected from destruction in the stomach and intestines and there is a possibility that it would be recycled through and IgA scavenging system in the liver and gut but the recipient would have to drink in buckets of spit for it to do any good.

So my conclusion is that the only benefit a recipient can get from a kiss is determined by whether or not it is welcomed and any behavior effects of it that follow.