Basis of Polyclonality
Responses are polyclonal in nature as each clone somewhat specializes in producing antibodies against a given epitope, and because, each antigen contains multiple epitopes, each of which in turn can be recognized by more than one clone of B cells. To be able to react to innumerable antigens, as well as multiple constituent epitopes, the immune system requires the ability to recognize a very great number of epitopes in all, i.e., there should be a great diversity of B cell clones.
Read more about this topic: Polyclonal Response/Archive 1
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