Somatic evolution of variable region structures during an immune response.

Somatic evolution of variable region structures during an immune response.

Immunization of strain A mice with p-azophenylarsonate-conjugated protein stimulates B cells that synthesize anti-p-azophenylarsonate antibodies. A large fraction of these cells produce antibodies with variable (V) regions encoded by a single heavy chain V gene segment together with multiple combinations of diversity, heavy chain joining, light chain variable, and light chain joining gene segme...

Different epitope structures select distinct mutant forms of an antibody variable region for expression during the immune response

Antibody variable (V) regions that initially differ from one another by only single amino acid residues at VH-D and D-JH segment junctions (termed canonical V regions) can be elicited in strain A/J mice by three different haptens. Among such V regions an amino acid substitution due to somatic mutation is recurrently observed at VH CDR2 position 58, regardless of which of these haptens is used f...

Somatic Mutations During an Immune Response in Xenopus Tadpoles

The tadpole B-cell repertoire is less diverse than that of the adult frog; their antibodies are of lower affinity and are less heterogenous. In order to determine whether this difference is due to a lack of or a reduced rate of somatic hypermutation, we analyzed and compared cDNA sequences utilizing VH1 elements with germline counterparts in isogenic LG7 tadpoles during an immune response. Inde...

Highly Variable Immune-Response Proteins

Evolution of Antibody Structure during the Immune Response

How an animal develops a state of antigen-specific, humoral immunity during the course of a primary immune response is arguably one of the most long-standing questions in the field of immunology. The clonal selection hypothesis (1, 2) explains this phenomenon by assuming that immunity is elaborated by an antigen-selective mechanism that draws from a large preexisting repertoire of B lymphocytes...