ABSTRACT
In recent years, immunology has undergone an important change by admitting that immune components might operate as a network. Classically, immune responses represent the bulk of immunological lore. Immune responses to infectious agents certainly do take place, and they are likely to alter significantly the configuration of the circulating antibody populations, which, in turn, are an integral of the central immune system (IS) dynamics, as are self molecular components. This necessary integration, between peripheral IS and central IS, implies that network and clonal selection mechanisms are not in opposition to each other, but are complementary processes, addressing different capacities of the immune system. In terms of the shape space concept, the somatic molecular environment can be assumed to have a definite morphology of its own. The strength of the immune affinities bear little or no correlation with the concentration of each somatic protein.
