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Antibody-antigen interactions are highly specific and those that have high affinity will interact with increased bond strength and trigger downstream immune responses. The strength of the bond between the epitope of the antigen and the paratope of the antibody will determine the affinity of the interaction. [1]
In immunology, a paratope, also known as an antigen-binding site, is the part of an antibody which recognizes and binds to an antigen. [ 1 ] [ 2 ] It is a small region at the tip of the antibody's antigen-binding fragment and contains parts of the antibody's heavy and light chains .
An epitope, also known as antigenic determinant, is the part of an antigen that is recognized by the immune system, specifically by antibodies, B cells, or T cells. The part of an antibody that binds to the epitope is called a paratope .
The variable domain contains the paratope (the antigen-binding site), comprising a set of complementarity-determining regions, at the amino terminal end of the monomer. Each arm of the Y thus binds an epitope on the antigen.
A hypervariable region (HVR) is a location within a sequence where polymorphisms frequently occur. It is used in two contexts: In the case of nucleic acids, an HVR is where base pairs frequently change.
HV3 is the most variable part. Thus these regions may be part of a paratope, the part of an antibody that recognizes and binds to an antigen. The rest of the V region between the hypervariable regions are called framework regions. Each V domain has four framework domains, namely FR1, FR2, FR3, and FR4. [4] [6]
The molecular region which binds to the epitope is the paratope. On surfaces of helper T cells are CD4 receptors, as well as TCRs. When a naive helper T cell's CD4 molecule docks to an APC's MHC class II molecule, its TCR can meet and bind the epitope coupled within the MHC class II. This event primes the naive T cell.
An epitope that can be attacked by many different B cells is said to be highly immunogenic. In these cases, the binding affinities for respective epitope-paratope pairs vary, with some B cell clones producing antibodies that bind strongly to the epitope, and others producing antibodies that bind weakly. [1]