The type of seeder cells determines the efficiency of germinal center reactions

During humoral immune responses some germinal centers (GCs) develop very well and give rise to a large number of high affinity antibody producing plasma cells. Other GC reactions develop poorly, somatic mutation is reduced, and the output production is practically absent. This led to the hypothesis that two classes of GCs exist, and that GCs show an all-or-none behaviour. We investigate the role of the seeder B cells affinity to the antigen in this context. It is shown in the framework of a space-time simulation of GC reactions that, indeed, the seeder cell affinity is a critical parameter that determines the fate of the GC reaction. Starting from a homogeneous distributions of seeder cell affinities in an ensemble of GC reactions, we demonstrate that an all-or-none behaviour of GCs has to be expected. Possible implications are discussed. (C) 2003 Society for Mathematical Biology Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.