{"id":34869,"date":"2021-12-21T12:08:13","date_gmt":"2021-12-21T18:08:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/?p=34869"},"modified":"2021-12-21T12:08:13","modified_gmt":"2021-12-21T18:08:13","slug":"word-of-the-day-755","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/2021\/12\/21\/word-of-the-day-755\/","title":{"rendered":"Word Of The Day"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>Affinity maturation<\/em>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>In\u00a0<a title=\"Immunology\" href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Immunology\">immunology<\/a>,\u00a0<b>affinity maturation<\/b>\u00a0is the process by which\u00a0<a title=\"Follicular B helper T cells\" href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Follicular_B_helper_T_cells\">T<sub>FH<\/sub>\u00a0cell<\/a>-activated\u00a0<a title=\"B cell\" href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/B_cell\">B cells<\/a>\u00a0produce\u00a0<a class=\"mw-redirect\" title=\"Antibodies\" href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Antibodies\">antibodies<\/a>\u00a0with increased affinity for\u00a0<a title=\"Antigen\" href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Antigen\">antigen<\/a>\u00a0during the course of an immune response. With repeated exposures to the same antigen, a host will produce antibodies of successively greater\u00a0<a title=\"Ligand (biochemistry)\" href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Ligand_(biochemistry)#Receptor.2Fligand_binding_affinity\">affinities<\/a>. A\u00a0<a title=\"Immune response\" href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Immune_response\">secondary response<\/a>\u00a0can elicit antibodies with several fold greater affinity than in a primary response. Affinity maturation primarily occurs on surface immunoglobulin of\u00a0<a title=\"Germinal center\" href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Germinal_center\">germinal center<\/a>\u00a0B cells and as a direct result of\u00a0<a title=\"Somatic hypermutation\" href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Somatic_hypermutation\">somatic hypermutation<\/a>\u00a0(SHM) and selection by\u00a0<a title=\"Follicular B helper T cells\" href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Follicular_B_helper_T_cells\">T<sub>FH<\/sub>\u00a0cells<\/a>.<em> [<a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Affinity_maturation\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><strong>Wikipedia<\/strong><\/a>]<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Noted in &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.newscientist.com\/article\/2299420-covid-booster-shots-are-pushing-protection-to-unexpected-heights\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><em>Covid booster shots are pushing protection to unexpected heights<\/em><\/a>,&#8221; Clare Wilson, <em><strong>NewScientist<\/strong><\/em> (4 December 2021):<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Several other vaccines require three doses, such as the one against the liver infection hepatitis B. Giving sequential doses takes advantage of the fact that when we repeatedly encounter a pathogen or vaccine, our antibody-making cells undergo a process called \u201caffinity maturation\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>Our antibodies are made by immune cells called B-cells, and during affinity maturation, these multiply within the body\u2019s lymph nodes while undergoing mutations. Only the B-cells that make the best antibodies survive and replicate, so as a result, their progeny make ever-stronger antibodies. \u201cWith other infections, the third booster protects you for longer and also gives you antibodies that have higher affinity,\u201d says [<a href=\"https:\/\/research-portal.uea.ac.uk\/en\/persons\/paul-hunter\">Paul Hunter<\/a> at the University of East Anglia, UK]<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Affinity maturation: In\u00a0immunology,\u00a0affinity maturation\u00a0is the process by which\u00a0TFH\u00a0cell-activated\u00a0B cells\u00a0produce\u00a0antibodies\u00a0with increased affinity for\u00a0antigen\u00a0during the course of an immune response. With repeated exposures to the same antigen, a host will produce antibodies of successively greater\u00a0affinities. A\u00a0secondary response\u00a0can elicit antibodies with several fold greater affinity than in a primary response. Affinity maturation primarily \u2026 <a class=\"continue-reading-link\" href=\"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/2021\/12\/21\/word-of-the-day-755\/\"> Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr; <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-34869","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34869","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34869"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34869\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":34870,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34869\/revisions\/34870"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34869"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34869"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34869"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}