Plasma cells develop from B-lymphocytes and produce immunoglobulins.
A particular plasmocyte synthesizes only a single class or a subclass of immunoglobulins, e.g., IgG, IgA, and IgM, i.e., just one type or subtype of heavy chains (g, a, m, d or e) and one type of light chains (K or l) in the definite quantitative proportion.
The total amount of an individual class of immunoglobulin in the organism is approximately proportional to the number of plasmocytes of the given clone that generated them.
The basic disturbance in some diseases consists of pathological proliferation of plasmocytes or lymphoplasmocytes and synthesis of cognate, monoclonal immunoglobulins or their fragments, known as “M components”.
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