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Module 2.3 · Topic 3
Module 2.3 · Topic 3
Two jobs, split cleanly across one molecule
Your genome has roughly 20,000 genes. Your immune system can recognise, conservatively, over a billion distinct molecular shapes. Those two numbers should not be compatible — and the way around it is one of the more elegant tricks in biology.
An antibody's Y-shape has two arm tips (identical to each other) and a stem. If you removed the stem entirely, keeping just the two arm tips, would the antibody still recognise and bind its specific target?
Antigen-binding specificity in an antibody resides in the:
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