Lung B cells in ectopic germinal centers undergo affinity maturation
Author(s)
Guillaume, Stephane M
Foster, William S
San Martín Molina, Isabel
Watson, Emily M
Innocentin, Silvia
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
The lungs are constantly exposed to the external environment and a myriad of antigenic challenges within the air. Chronic exposure to allergens and other airborne antigens can result in the formation of lymphocyte aggregates in the lung, which can harbor ectopic germinal centers (GCs). After allergen exposure, GCs that form in the lung are much smaller and less densely packed with B cells than lymph node GCs. Despite this, ectopic lung GCs support somatic hypermutation and affinity-based maturation as in lymph node GCs, and export memory B cells (MBCs) directly into the lung tissue. This demonstrates that the lung can locally diversify B cell responses and supports the generation of tissue MBC populations in situ.
Date Issued
2025-04-08
Date Acceptance
2025-02-18
Citation
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2025, 122 (14)
ISSN
0027-8424
Publisher
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
Journal / Book Title
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
Volume
122
Issue
14
Copyright Statement
© 2025 the Author(s). Published by PNAS. This open access article is distributed under Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0 (CC BY).
License URL
Identifier
10.1073/pnas.24168551221of10
Subjects
S.M.G., W.S.F., A.E.D., and M.A.L. designed research
S.M.G., W.S.F., I.S.M.M., E.M.W., and S.I. performed research
G.M.K. contributed new reagents/analytic tools
S.M.G., W.S.F., I.S.M.M., and G.M.K. analyzed data
and S.M.G., W.S.F., A.E.D., and M.A.L. wrote the paper
Publication Status
Published
Article Number
e2416855122
Date Publish Online
2025-04-01