title: Factors influencing the preimmune antibody repertoire.
abstract: Preimmune antibody repertoire is not a statistical representation of all germ-line VH, D, JH and VL, JL segments encoding heavy and light chains, respectively. The antibody repertoire is biased towards a fraction of VH and VL gene segments in fetal/neonatal as well as adult life. The repertoire bias starts at the surface Ig-negative pre-B cells and persists throughout B-cell ontogeny. Antigen-independent processes like preferential rearrangements of VH, D and JH segments and pairing of the heavy and surrogate light chain operate at the surface Ig-negative pre-B cell stage. Subsequently B cells may be subject to self-antigen selection based on the specificity of their surface receptors.
authors.affiliation: Laboratory of Immunobiology, Institute of Immunology and Experimental Therapy, Wroclaw, Poland.
authors.forename: P
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Kraj
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000375:Aging / Q000276:immunology; D000818:Animals; D000917:Antibody Formation; D001402:B-Lymphocytes / Q000276:immunology*; D005333:Fetus; D005803:Genes, Immunoglobulin; D006801:Humans; D007128:Immunoglobulin Fragments / Q000235:genetics; D007136:Immunoglobulins / Q000235:genetics*; D007231:Infant, Newborn; D018448:Models, Immunological
chemical_list: D007128:Immunoglobulin Fragments; D007136:Immunoglobulins