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Re:CRISPR eliminates HIV-1 infection in live animals by lr4444lr on Wednesday May 03, 2017 @08:35AM (#14255105)
Is there concern that those long-lived antibody clones become pathological themselves?
Re:CRISPR eliminates HIV-1 infection in live animals by virusduck on Wednesday May 03, 2017 @11:39AM (#14256674)
Yes and no. Yes in that some of the many billions of combinations of antibody genes can recognize self proteins, which is a problem. However, during maturation of B cells, the immune system has a mechanism for killing of those B cells which would produce anti-self antibodies before they mature. There are times when this fails to work--think Grave's Disease, many forms of lupus, alopecia, etc.

I think in the sense you are asking, though, is that any long-lived plasma cell or memory B cell that is active will probably not change to the extent that they would attack self. I don't know off the top of my head if there are examples of this, but I can't think of any.