Generation of antibody dieversity. IV. Variation within single clones of antibody‐forming cells developingin vivo

摘要

AbstractPrevious experimental work demonstrated that clonal variation occursin vitro. The present experiments were designed to test for clonal variationin vivo. B cells were transferred at limiting dilution, with antigen, into irradiated recipients. Seven days later spleens were assayed for plaque‐forming cell (PFC) colonies. Control experiments showed that these PFC colonies were clones, that is, they were derived from a single B cell precursor. When the clones were analyzed for heterogeneity of the PFC population, using cross‐reactivity on various mixtures of red blood cells as a method of detecting differences in antibody specificity, form 23–83 of the clones contained variants. By adjusting the amounts of helper activity and antigen available to a developing clone, we have been able to influence this variation; high levels of help and/or antigen favour pure clones, while low levels of either produce mainly mixed c