Following a booster vaccination, what happens to the average antibody affinity in the patient's bloodstream?

💡 Explanation

Following a booster, existing memory B cells undergo further rounds of affinity maturation in germinal centers. Somatic hypermutation introduces mutations into antibody genes, and B cells with higher affinity for the antigen are preferentially selected. Therefore, average antibody affinity increases, rather than remaining stable or decreasing due to exhaustion.

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