Possible occurrence and meaning of lymphocytes bearing autoanti-idiotypic receptors during the immune response.

During an immune response, the increase in binding affinity of antibodies is followed by a fall. Lymphocytes bearing autoanti-idiotypic receptors were detected during a normal immune response. The kinetics of appearance and disappearance of such lymphocytes led us to propose a network model to explain the changes occurring in antibody properties during an immune response.