Name: Bibek Biswakarma Date: 10 th Oct 2021

Student no. 19-2-02646 Course: BS BIO 4-1

Immunology
Assignment 4: Antigen Recognition in the adaptive Immune system

1. What are the functionally distinct domains (regions) of antibody and TCR
molecules?
 Antibody and T cell receptor (TCR) proteins contain variable domains that
are involved in antigen recognition and constant domains that, in the case
of antibodies, mediate effector functions.

2. What features of the amino acid sequences in these regions are important
for their functions?
 Variable domains contain hypervariable regions (sequences that differ
among different antibodies or TCRs) that form the binding sites for
antigens.

3. What are the differences in the types of antigens recognized by antibodies

and TCRs?
 The differences in the types of antigens recognized by antibodies and
TCRs are:
A. Type of antigen: All kind of molecules including small chemicals,
proteins, carbohydrates, lipids, and nucleic acids.
Soluble or membrane bound
Structure (protein): Conformational and linear epitopes
Antigen recognition is mediated by: Variable regions of light
and heavy chains
B. Type of antigen: Only peptides. Produced or taken up by the MHC
carrying cell.
Structure (protein): Linear epitopes only (peptides bound to
MHC
Antigen recognition is mediated by: Variable regions of alpha
and beta chains of the TCR
4. What mechanisms contribute to the diversity of antibody and TCR
molecules? Which of these mechanisms contributes the most to the diversity?
 TCRs and Abs are produced by recombination of group of genes (V-D-J).
Two major mechanism contribute to the diversity:
a. Combinatorial diversity (Randomly joining one group from each gene)
b. Junctional diversity (random addition and/or removal of nucleotides
between joining ends).
Junctional diversity makes the greatest contribution to diversity.

5. What are some of the checkpoints during lymphocyte maturation that

ensure survival of the useful cells?
 The first checkpoint in B and T cell maturation involves the selection of
pre-B and pre-T cells that have productively rearranged the µ heavy-chain
gene in the case of B lineage cells and the TCR b chain gene in the case
of developing T cells.
 The second checkpoint is after production of complete antigen receptors,
and ensures that only cells with the proper V-D-J rearrangement can
mature.

6. What is the phenomenon of negative selection, and what is its importance?

 Negative selection results in the deletion or editing of strongly self-reactive
lymphocytes. This process eliminates many self antigen-reactive
lymphocytes, in the thymus for T cells and in the bone marrow for B cells.
Positive selection is a process in which T cells that can recognize self
MHC molecules weakly are allowed to survive and express the type of
coreceptor that matches the type of MHC molecule recognized.