Question

During a secondary immune response, B cells undergo the same processes as they do in the primary immune response (somatic hypermutation & affinity maturation), but don't usually go through?

Answer 1

During a secondary immune response, B cells undergo somatic hypermutation and affinity maturation, but do not usually go through class switching.

Step-by-step explanation:

The processes that B cells undergo in a secondary immune response are somatic hypermutation and affinity maturation.

However, in a secondary immune response, B cells usually do not go through class switching.

Class switching is a process where B cells change the class of antibodies they produce.

During the primary immune response, antigens stimulate B cells to switch from producing IgM antibodies to producing other antibody classes like IgG, IgA, or IgE.

This switching allows B cells to produce antibodies with different functions and properties.

However, during a secondary immune response, memory B cells that were produced during the primary response can quickly differentiate into plasma cells and start producing antibodies without the need for class switching.