Summary
In antibodies during affinity maturation, antigen-binding affinity and broad specificity present competing objectives, with the former achieved by rigidification and the latter by maintained flexibility while targeting conserved epitopes (1). A quantitative model captures some degrees of the trade-off between these two.
1.
Ovchinnikov V, Louveau JE, Barton JP, Karplus M, Chakraborty AK. Role of framework mutations and antibody flexibility in the evolution of broadly neutralizing antibodies. eLife. 2018;7. Available from: https://doi.org/10.7554/elife.33038