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What Are the Primary Limitations in B-Cell Affinity Maturation, and How Much Affinity Maturation Can We Drive with

Kai-Michael Toellner1, Daniel M-Y Sze2, Yang Zhang1

  • 1Institute of Immunology and Immunotherapy, University of Birmingham, Birmingham B15 2TT, United Kingdom.

Cold Spring Harbor Perspectives in Biology
|June 21, 2017
PubMed

We discuss the impact of antibody feedback on affinity maturation of B cells. Competition from epitope-specific antibodies produced earlier during the immune response leads to immune complex formation, which is essential for transport and deposition of antigen onto follicular dendritic cells (FDCs). It also reduces the concentration of free epitopes into the microm to nm range, which is essential for B-cell receptors (BCRs) to sense affinity-dependent changes in binding capacity. Antibody feedback may also induce epitope spreading, leading to a broader selection of epitopes recognized by newly emerging B-cell clones. This may be exploitable, providing ways to manipulate epitope usage induced by vaccination.

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