clonal selection: a standalone construct

In immunology, clonal selection is the principle that each lymphocyte carries a receptor of a single specificity fixed before it meets antigen, and that antigen works by selecting the few cells whose receptors already fit it and driving them to proliferate into a responding clone. Burnet's 1957 proposal, A modification of Jerne's theory of antibody production using the concept of clonal selection, recast antibody production as selection among pre-existing variants rather than the antigen instructing the cell. The referent is this selection-and-expansion logic underlying adaptive immune responses and immunological memory.[1]

Unit

The expansion of antigen-matched lymphocyte clones relative to the unselected repertoire

Recovery means

Not applicable

Measured by

Evidenced by antigen-driven proliferation of specific clones and the one-cell-one-specificity structure of the lymphocyte repertoire