RESUMO
The immune system is known to generate a diverse panel of high-affinity Abs by adaptively improving the recognition of pathogens during ongoing immune responses. In this study, we report the biological limits for Ag-driven affinity maturation and repertoire diversification by analyzing Ab repertoires in two adult volunteers after each of three consecutive booster vaccinations with tetanus toxoid. Maturation of on-rates and off-rates occurred independently, indicating a kinetically controlled affinity maturation process. The third vaccination induced no significant changes in the distribution of somatic mutations and binding rate constants implying that the limits for affinity maturation and repertoire diversification had been reached. These fully matured Ab repertoires remained similar in size, genetically diverse, and dynamic. Somatic mutations and kinetic rate constants showed normal and log-normal distribution profiles, respectively. Mean values can therefore be considered as biological constants defining the observed boundaries. At physiological temperature, affinity maturation peaked at k(on) = 1.6 × 10(4) M(-1) s(-1) and k(off) = 1.7 × 10(-4) s(-1) leading to a maximum mean affinity of K(D) = 1.0 × 10(-9) M. At ambient temperature, the average affinity increased to K(D) = 3.4 × 10(-10) M mainly due to slower off-rates. This experimentally determined set of constants can be used as a benchmark for analysis of the maturation level of human Abs and Ab responses.
Assuntos
Afinidade de Anticorpos/imunologia , Imunização Secundária , Hipermutação Somática de Imunoglobulina/imunologia , Toxoide Tetânico/imunologia , Vacinação/métodos , Sequência de Aminoácidos , Afinidade de Anticorpos/genética , Humanos , Região Variável de Imunoglobulina/genética , Dados de Sequência Molecular , Reação em Cadeia da Polimerase , Hipermutação Somática de Imunoglobulina/genética , Ressonância de Plasmônio de SuperfícieRESUMO
Due to technical limitations, little knowledge exists on the composition of Ag-specific polyclonal Ab responses. Hence, we here present a molecular analysis of two representative human Ab repertoires isolated by using a novel single-cell cloning approach. The observed genetic diversity among tetanus toxoid-specific plasma cells indicate that human polyclonal repertoires are limited to the order of 100 B cell clones and hypermutated variants thereof. Affinity and kinetic binding constants are log-normally distributed, and median values are close to the proposed affinity ceilings for positive selection. Abs varied a million-fold in affinity but were restricted in their off-rates with an upper limit of 2 x 10(-3) s(-1). Identification of Abs of high affinity without hypermutations in combination with a modest effect of hypermutations on observed affinity increases indicate that Abs selected from the naive repertoire are not only of low affinity but cover a relatively large span in affinity, reaching into the subnanomolar range.
