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Previous Volume 360:722-723 February 12, 2009 Number 7 Next

	Since this article has no abstract, we have provided an extract of the first 100 words of the full text and any section headings.

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It seems that B cells, the lymphocytes responsible for producing antibodies, are eager to share their secrets. Their revelations were first uncovered indirectly in serum through reactions with microbes, cells, and toxins; increases in gamma globulin after immunization; agammaglobulinemia associated with immune deficiency; and the paraproteins in multiple myeloma and related disorders that ultimately revealed the structure of immunoglobulins and prompted the two-gene–one-antibody hypothesis. Further revelations, often surprising and unique, came from the B cells themselves: clonal expansion, allelic exclusion, light-chain restriction, somatic recombination of immunoglobulin V genes, isotype switching, and the deliberate hypermutation of V genes that leads to . . . [Full Text of this Article]

Source Information

From the Division of Laboratory Sciences, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta (R.F.V.); and the Division of Hematology, Mayo Clinic, Rochester, MN (R.A.K.).

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