Nature of the Antibody Combining Site

Despite the enormous progress of molecular biology in bringing understanding of the generation of antibody complementarity and diversity to the gene level, we do not yet have a comprehensive picture of which individual amino acid side chains are functionally important, e.g., involved in determining antibody complementarity either by contacting the antigenic determinant directly, or by playing a conformational role, or are neutral non-contacting residues, or are involved in idiotypic specificity, or may reduce ability of the determinant to enter the site.