3 ms·

I have an open question that I've never been able to find the answer to: What are the limits to the memory of our immune system? Surely there are limits, to th

by caeril 5y ago

I have an open question that I've never been able to find the answer to: What are the limits to the memory of our immune system? Surely there are limits, to the extent that our blood can only carry N number of Memory B cells, and those cells that still exist carry some degree of senescence, and we need M of them to mount an timely response to a recurrence of infection, how many protein antigens can our immune system actually remember and respond to over long periods of time?

passivate 5y ago
Short answer: nobody knows. In any case, I don't believe an answer is realistically even possible because we can't easily isolate all the other factors involved. Also, you'll have to consider affinity maturation and the cutoff for B-cell specificity for an antigen to clearly define what you even mean by 'remembering a protein antigen'. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Activation-induced_cytidine_deaminase https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Activation-induced_cytidine_de... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affinity_maturation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affinity_maturation ^ and many more that will probably just end up amounting to a couple of years of study!