Paucity of phosphorylcholine-specific clones in B cells expressing the VHT15 gene product

The aim of this work was to study the cellular basis of the phenomenon of clonal dominance. To this end we analyzed two collections of BALB/c and C.B20 hybridomas that we selected on the basis of the expression of the VHT15 gene product independently from their antigen specificity. Our study demonstrates that none of the 28 BALB/c and only 2 of the 29 C.B20 hybridomas obtained have variable regions that bind PC. We conclude therefore that the domination of the immune response to PC by particular variable regions cannot be due to the establishment of clonal dominance prior to immunization.