B-cell restriction – an alternative piece to the puzzle

Gershoni, Jonathan M.

The ability to produce highly specific and discriminating lead antibodies … to everything Tonegawa discovered the ability of chromosomes to rearrange and produce VJ/VDJ junctions. 6 This breakthrough cracked the long-lasting perplexing conundrum of how, with so few open reading frames in our genome, we are able to produce millions and millions of unique antibodies, each the product of a distinct B-cell clone. The wealth of antibodies is further increased by the introduction of P and N nucleotides at the combinatorial junctions. Thus, there seems to be no limit to the diversity of antibodies we are able to produce. Antigens can be proteins, nucleic acids, 7,8 sugars 9,10 as well as lipids. [11] [12] [13] So long as there is even marginal affinity of the B-cell receptor (BCR) for an epitope of the immunogen, clonal expansion is launched and ever-improved antibodies are generated.