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Updated: Jul 12, 2025

Analysis of Somatic Hypermutation in the JH4 intron of Germinal Center B cells from Mouse Peyer's Patches
Published on: April 20, 2021
Mechanism and regulation of secondary immunoglobulin diversification
Amanda Bello1, Gianna Hirth1, Stefanie Voigt1
1Institute of Biochemistry and Biophysics, Faculty of Biological Sciences, Friedrich Schiller University, Jena, Germany.
Abstract:
Secondary immunoglobulin diversification by somatic hypermutation and class switch recombination in B cells is instrumental for an adequate adaptive humoral immune response. These genetic events may, however, also introduce aberrations into other cellular genes and thereby cause B cell malignancies. While the basic mechanism of somatic hypermutation and class switch recombination is now well understood, their regulation and in particular the mechanism of their specific targeting to immunoglobulin genes is still rather mysterious. In this review, we summarize the current knowledge on the mechanism and regulation of secondary immunoglobulin diversification and discuss known mechanisms of physiological targeting to immunoglobulin genes and mistargeting to other cellular genes. We summarize open questions in the field and provide an outlook on future research.
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