Table 3.

The characteristics of the two decision steps taken by the immune system in response to an antigen

The process	Decision 1 (The sorting of paratopes)	Decision 2 (The determination of effector class)
Is encoded and selected	somatically	in the germline
Is initiated	prior to encounter with NS	after encounter with NS
Is mediated	epitope-by-epitope	antigen-by-antigen
Results in	deletion of anti-S, paratope-by-paratope	a coherent effector response to each epitope linked on the antigen (i.e. ARA)
Operates when there is	an insufficiency of eTh specific for the given antigen	a sufficiency of eTh specific for the given antigen