Replaying germinal center evolution on a quantified affinity landscape.

ABSTRACT: Darwinian evolution of immunoglobulin genes within germinal centers (GC) underlies the progressive increase in antibody affinity following antigen exposure. Whereas the mechanics of how competition between GC B cells drives increased affinity are well established, the dynamical evolutionary features of this process remain poorly characterized. We devised an experimental evolution model in which we "replay" over one hundred instances of a clonally homogenous GC reaction and follow the selective process by assigning affinities to all cells using deep mutational scanning. Our data reveal how GCs achieve predictable evolutionary outcomes through the cumulative effects of many rounds of imperfect selection, acting on a landscape shaped heavily by somatic hypermutation (SHM) targeting biases. Us

SUBMITTER: DeWitt WS 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12258878 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature