• Question: How is it that the B-memory cells are kept alive for so long and how do they actually make the antibodies

    Asked by Wrichik1999 to Steph, Laura on 8 Mar 2015. This question was also asked by ErikSchroder.
    • Photo: Stephanie Dyson

      Stephanie Dyson answered on 8 Mar 2015:

      Antibodies are part of the Bcell receptor they are also called immunoglobulins
      they are made like any protein from something called RNA that is formed from DNA. Once created, RNA is moved to the protein making machinery in a cell which is called the “ribosome” but each B cell has its own specific type of antibody because during B cell maturation they undergo VDJ recombination which is basically just jumbling all the genes around so all the sequenes are different.

      As for memory cells, there are a few theories around this but most people think that somehow the B cells are responding to antigens at a very low level and this keeps them stimulated at a low level so they stay alive without driving lots of proliferation of antibody secretion.

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