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Phased variability in cell fate determination orchestrates antibody evolution

Zhaolin Hua1

  • 1State Key Laboratory of Epigenetic Regulation and Intervention, Institute of Biophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China; University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China.

Cell Systems
|June 17, 2026
PubMed

Antibody affinity maturation relies on somatic hypermutation and affinity-based selection of B cell clones. A new study shows that phased variability in B cell fate decisions, often encoded by non-genetic cellular states, enhances this evolutionary process by permitting the emergence and persistence of rare outlier cells with advantageous properties.

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