Germinal centers or germinal centres (GCs) are transiently formed structures within B cell zone (follicles) in secondary lymphoid organs – lymph nodes, ileal Peyer's patches, and the spleen – where mature B cells are activated, proliferate, differentiate, and mutate their antibody genes (through somatic hypermutation aimed at achieving higher affinity) during a normal immune response; most of the germinal center B cells (BGC) are removed by tingible body macrophages. The B cells develop dynamically after the activation of follicular B cells by T-dependent antigen. As they undergo rapid and mutative cellular division, B cells of the germinal center's dark zone are known as centroblasts. Once these B cells have stopped proliferating and moved to the light zone, they are known as centrocytes, and are subjected to selection by follicular helper T (TFH) cells in the presence of follicular dendritic cells (FDCs). Germinal centers are an important part of the B cell humoral immune response, acting as central factories for the generation of affinity matured B cells specialized in producing improved antibodies that effectively recognize antigen (e.g. infectious agents), and for the production of long-lived plasma cells and durable memory B cells. Process Within lymph nodes, mature peripheral B cells known as follicular (Fo) B cells acquire antigen from FDCs and in turn present it to cognate CD4+ TFH cells at the border that demarcates the interfollicular T cell area and B cell zone (also known as lymphoid follicles). After several rounds of cellular division, the B cells go through somatic hypermutation, a process by which they mutate their antibody-encoding DNA and thus generate a diversity of clones in the germinal center. This involves pseudo-random substitutions biased towards regions encoding the antigen recognition surface of the antibodies the B cells produce. This phenomenon underscores the process of affinity maturation, whereby greater affinity antibodies are produced and selected for after antigen recognition. Upon receiving an unidentified stimulus, the maturing B cells (centroblasts) migrate from the dark zone to the light zone and start to express their edited BCRs on the cell surface and at this stage are referred to as centrocytes. The centrocytes are in a state of activated apoptosis and compete for survival signals derived from FDCs and TFH cells. This rescue process, known as germinal center selection, is believed to be dependent on the affinity of their surface antibody to the antigen. Such that, a B cell that has successfully