Somatic hypermutation (SHM) introduces mutations in antibody genes in B cells, increasing antibody diversity. SHM occurs at a rate 10,000 times higher than the normal mutation rate. These mutations mainly occur in hypervariable regions of antibody genes and result from nucleotide substitutions. Molecules involved in SHM include activation-induced cytidine deaminase and uracil N-glycosylase, which initiate mutations, and mismatch repair proteins, which normally eliminate mutations but instead increase the mutation rate during SHM. Future directions include using SHM to evolve proteins in mammalian cells by integrating target genes in B cells and selecting cells with desired phenotypes.