Caught Off Center: Rethinking the Requirements for Antibody Affinity Maturation

Antibody affinity maturation involves selective survival of high affinity B cells and is thought to require the germinal center (GC) microenvironment. In this issue of Immunity, Di Niro et al. (2015) challenge this view, showing that low affinity B cells initiate Salmonella responses and affinity mature outside of GCs. Antibody affinity maturation involves selective survival of high affinity B cells, and is thought to require the germinal center (GC) microenvironment. Slomchik and colleagues challenge this view, showing that low affinity B cells initiate Salmonella responses and affinity mature outside of GCs.