Publisher Summary The chapter discusses humoral self-tolerance as the cumulative action
of a series of separate checkpoints placed along the B cell lineage. The strategy of
employing multiple and distinct checkpoints presumably minimizes the risk that one or two
inherited or somatically acquired mutations leads to uncontrolled autoantibody production,
analogous to the role of checkpoints in the cell cycle that minimize neoplasia. Each
checkpoint may depend on distinct sets of genes and molecules. From a genetic …