Commonality despite exceptional diversity in the baseline human antibody repertoire

• Published in: Nature (London) Vol. 566; no. 7744; pp. 393 - 397
• Main Authors: Briney, Bryan, Inderbitzin, Anne, Joyce, Collin, Burton, Dennis R.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London Nature Publishing Group UK 01.02.2019; Nature Publishing Group
• Subjects: 45/23; 45/77; 631/250/2152/2153/1291; 631/250/2152/2497; Adaptive systems; Analysis; Antibodies; Antibodies - chemistry; Antibodies - genetics; Antibodies - immunology; Antibody response; Antigens; Antigens - immunology; Autoantigens; B cells; B-Lymphocytes - cytology; B-Lymphocytes - immunology; B-Lymphocytes - metabolism; Base Sequence; Clone Cells - cytology; Clone Cells - immunology; Clone Cells - metabolism; Commonality; Estimates; Gene sequencing; Genes; Genetic research; Genetic Variation - genetics; Genomes; Genomics; Human genome; Human physiology; Humanities and Social Sciences; Humans; Immune system; Letter; Library collections; Lymphocytes; Lymphocytes B; Lymphocytes T; Multiculturalism & pluralism; multidisciplinary; Organs; Peripheral blood; Population; Science; Science (multidisciplinary); Sequence Analysis, DNA; Somatic hypermutation; T cell receptors; T cells

In principle, humans can produce an antibody response to any non-self-antigen molecule in the appropriate context. This flexibility is achieved by the presence of a large repertoire of naive antibodies, the diversity of which is expanded by somatic hypermutation following antigen exposure 1 . The di...