Germinal center reutilization by newly activated B cells

Citations Over TimeTop 11% of 2009 papers

Abstract

Germinal centers (GCs) are specialized structures in which B lymphocytes undergo clonal expansion, class switch recombination, somatic hypermutation, and affinity maturation. Although these structures were previously thought to contain a limited number of isolated B cell clones, recent in vivo imaging studies revealed that they are in fact dynamic and appear to be open to their environment. We demonstrate that B cells can colonize heterologous GCs. Invasion of primary GCs after subsequent immunization is most efficient when T cell help is shared by the two immune responses; however, it also occurs when the immune responses are entirely unrelated. We conclude that GCs are dynamic anatomical structures that can be reutilized by newly activated B cells during immune responses.

Related Papers

• → Sequence-Intrinsic Mechanisms that Target AID Mutational Outcomes on Antibody Genes(2015)157 cited
• → Affinity maturation and class switching(1996)62 cited
• → CD27− B-Cells Produce Class Switched and Somatically Hyper-Mutated Antibodies during Chronic HIV-1 Infection(2009)56 cited
• → Isotype-switched follicular lymphoma displays dissociation between activation-induced cytidine deaminase expression and somatic hypermutation(2015)24 cited
• → AID expression during B-cell development: searching for answers(2010)18 cited