Antibody
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Comment by Steven Myers on April 4th, 2013 at 10:18 pm
“The antibodies that a single B lymphocyte (B cell) produces can differ in their heavy chain, and the B cell often expresses different classes of antibodies at the same time. However, they are identical in their specificity for antigen, conferred by their variable region.”
It is my understanding that the only immunoglobulin isotypesactually expressed by the B cell are IgM and IgD (i.e. IgM and IgD expressed during development, and IgM alone expressed in maturity), and the remaining isotypes (IgA, IgE, and IgG) would then be exclusively secretory. Therefore, the phrase “the B cell often expresses different classes of antibodies at the same time” would only be appropriate in referencing developing B cells (and only with the IgD and IgM isotypes).
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