text: Many viruses undergo frequent mutations that result in changes in amino acid composition of their important proteins. Epitopes located on the protein may also undergo alterations in the process. Such an altered epitope binds less strongly with the antibodies specific to the  unaltered epitope that would have stimulated the immune system. This is unfortunate because somatic hypermutation does give rise to clones capable of producing soluble antibodies that would have bound the altered epitope avidly enough to neutralize it. But these clones would consist of naive cells which are not allowed to proliferate by the weakly binding antibodies produced by the priorly stimulated clone. This doctrine is known as the original antigenic sin. This phenomenon comes into play particularly in immune responses against influenza, dengue and HIV viruses. This limitation, however, is not imposed by the phenomenon of polyclonal response, but rather, against it by an immune response that is biased in favor of experienced memory cells against the "novice" naive cells.