B cells - Latest research and news (2024)

Germline-targeting immunogens guide bnAb development

Structure-guided protein design enables germline-targeting immunization strategies to generate broadly neutralizing antibodies against MPER, a region of the HIV envelope glycoprotein that is functionally important and highly conserved, but a challenging target for antibody responses.

• Tobias V. Lanz

A guide to adaptive immune memory

This Review provides a guide to the memory cells of the adaptive immune system, comprising memory T cells, memory B cells and plasma cells; it covers their formation, function, heterogeneity, localization, regulation and maintenance, and the crucial technological advances that allowed their discovery.

• Nora Lam
• YoonSeung Lee
• Donna L. Farber

Peripheral apoptosis and limited clonal deletion during physiologic murine B lymphocyte development

Self-tolerance is established during B cell development but the contribution of clonal deletion, receptor editing, anergy and apoptosis is debated. Here we show that although apoptosis does occur in a high proportion of transitional B cells after exiting the bone marrow, the reactivity of apoptotic B cells does not differ from that of viable cells, which argues against apoptosis as major mechanism to eliminate self-reactive and polyreactive clones.

• Mikala JoAnn Simpson
• Anna Minh Newen
• Christian Thomas Mayer

Multiple sclerosis patient-derived spontaneous B cells have distinct EBV and host gene expression profiles in active disease

Characterizing EBV and host gene expression profiles of spontaneous lymphoblastoid cell lines isolated from multiple sclerosis (MS) patients with acute or stable disease, as well as healthy donors, suggests antivirals as a potential road to treat MS.

• Samantha S. Soldan
• Chenhe Su
• Paul M. Lieberman

Recruitment of plasma cells from IL-21-dependent and IL-21-independent immune reactions to the bone marrow

The mechanisms driving B cell differentiation into resident bone marrow plasma cells (BMPC) remain unclear. Here the authors use single cell sequencing and BMPC phenotyping to infer developmental pathways and regulation by IL-21 in germinal centres to promote maintenance of BMPC after vaccination in humans.

• Marta Ferreira-Gomes
• Yidan Chen
• Mir-Farzin Mashreghi

Stroke and myocardial infarction induce neutrophil extracellular trap release disrupting lymphoid organ structure and immunoglobulin secretion

Tuz et al. report that stroke and myocardial infarction induce the release of neutrophil extracellular traps (NETs), triggering the loss of B cells and a decrease in immunoglobulin A secretion, and that inhibition of NETs prevents the loss of immunoglobulin A in mice and in patients with stroke.

• Ali A. Tuz
• Susmita Ghosh
• Vikramjeet Singh

Loss of CREBBP and KMT2D cooperate to accelerate lymphomagenesis and shape the lymphoma immune microenvironment

CREBBP and KMT2D mutations frequently co-occur in B cell lymphomas with unclear significance. Here the authors show that they cooperate to skew B cell fate decisions and induce a CD8-depleted immune-evasive microenvironment to facilitate lymphomagenesis.

• Jie Li
• Christopher R. Chin
• Ari M. Melnick

Germline-targeting immunogens guide bnAb development

Structure-guided protein design enables germline-targeting immunization strategies to generate broadly neutralizing antibodies against MPER, a region of the HIV envelope glycoprotein that is functionally important and highly conserved, but a challenging target for antibody responses.

• Tobias V. Lanz

Neutrophil extracellular traps trigger IgA loss after stroke and myocardial infarction

The mechanisms by which stroke and myocardial infarction trigger lymphocyte loss remain poorly defined. This study shows that the release of neutrophil extracellular traps (NETs) after stroke and myocardial infarction triggers B cell apoptosis and reduces the number of IgA-producing plasma cells. Therapeutic targeting of NETs is immunoprotective in mice and humans.

The enduring neutrophil–stroma dance of multiple myeloma

Inflammatory memory cues initiated by neutrophils and bone marrow stroma suggest potential therapeutic targets for the treatment of multiple myeloma.

• Daniela Cerezo-Wallis
• Iván Ballesteros

Facilitating broad antibody responses

• Laurie A. Dempsey

Osteoblast-derived ATP maintains bone marrow plasma cells

Plasma cells use P2RX4 to sense the regulated release of ATP from osteoblasts and this protects against ER stress-driven apoptosis.

• Yvonne Bordon

ZEB2 promotes formation of age-related B cells

Age-related B cells (ABCs) have pathogenic roles in autoimmune diseases. Research has now identified ZEB2 as the transcription factor that mediates differentiation into ABCs.

• Robert Phillips