title: On the skew distribution of immunoglobulins and the inverted protein-folding problem.
abstract: The question of antibody specificity is discussed in the framework of the inverted protein-folding problem (i.e. the characterization of protein sequences with a common fold). A stochastic model of the immune response, patterned after a model for the distribution of words in natural languages is proposed. It is shown that the steady-state probability distribution of immunoglobulin variable-region frequencies is the Yule distribution.
authors.affiliation: Centro de Investigaciones Biológicas, Universidad Veracruzana, Xalapa, Ver., Mexico.
authors.forename: M A
authors.initials: MA
authors.lastname: Jiménez-Montaño
authors.forename: F
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Lara-Ochoa
mesh_terms: D000918:Antibody Specificity; D007136:Immunoglobulins / Q000737:chemistry*; D008954:Models, Biological; D011487:Protein Conformation; D013269:Stochastic Processes
chemical_list: D007136:Immunoglobulins