PSIO 431 Study Guide - Final Guide: Somatic Hypermutation, Antigen, Antibody

• School: University of Arizona
• Department: Physiology
• Course: PSIO 431
• Professor: Zoe cohen

Document Summary

Assignment #2: somatic hypermutation of antibody variable regions can occur during an immune response. It allows daughter cells to produce antibodies with slightly different v regions than the parent cell. Give one reason why this might be important for the efficacy of the antibody response. Explain why mutations in the framework region of an antibody might be more detrimental to the antibody than mutations in the cdrs. (4 points) The slight changes in the v region of the antibodies, due to somatic hypermutation, increases the affinity towards the antigen. This slight difference in the v region can lead an increase of probability of the antigen to best fit the antibody. Thus, the immune response becomes faster and more effective. A mutation to the framework region on an antibody might be more detrimental to the antibody than mutations to cdrs because if the antibody s structure and cdrs binding site for the antigen is held together by the framework regions.