What is affinity maturation? How is it induced, and how are _Antibody Technology Column_Technical FAQs_Information Center

Burnet's clonal selection theory provided a theoretical framework for affinity maturation, as shown in Figure 1). The B cells in the peripheral B cell pool express a clonally distributed, diverse antibody repertoire. This repertoire includes antibody specificities against any given antigen or antigenic determinant, but, in general, high-affinity antibodies should be less frequent than antibodies of average or low affinity. The clonal selection theory postulates that antigen selectively expands B cells expressing antibodies on their surface to which it can bind. With decreasing antigen concentration in the course of the response this mechanism results in the preferential expansion of B cells expressing high-affinity antibodies, as depicted in the upper part of Figure 1. We have learned in the meantime that the process of B cell triggering is more complex: the B cell captures antigen by its receptor antibody from antigen-presenting (follicular dendritic) cells, processes it intracellularly and exposes fragments of the antigen on its surface, in the groove of major histocompatibility complex (MHC) antigens of class II. Subsequently, T helper cells recognize the antigen-loaded MHC molecules and signal the B cell into its pathway of proliferation and differentiation. This multistage process, together with the variability of antigenic valency, makes the relation of antibody affinity to cellular selection complicated (indeed selection seems sometimes driven by the on-rate of antigen binding rather than affinity), but does not change the picture in principle.

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What is affinity maturation? How is it induced, and how are

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