Abstract
The major goal in vaccination is establishment of long-term, prophylactic humoral memory to a pathogen. Two major components to long-lived humoral memory are plasma cells for the production of specific immunoglobulin and memory B cells that survey for their specific antigen in the periphery for later affinity maturation, proliferation, and differentiation. The study of human B cell memory has been aided by the discovery of a general marker for B cell memory, expression of CD27; however, new data suggests the existence of CD27− memory B cells as well. These recently described non-canonical memory populations have increasingly pointed to the heterogeneity of the memory compartment. The novel B memory subsets in humans appear to have unique origins, localization, and functions compared to what was considered to be a “classical” memory B cell. In this article, we review the known B cell memory subsets, the establishment of B cell memory in vaccination and infection, and how understanding these newly described subsets can inform vaccine design and disease treatment.
Highlights
THE DISCOVERY OF IMMUNOLOGICAL MEMORY Immunological memory as a biological phenomenon has its roots in a simple, but powerful, observation; exemplified by Thucydides during an outbreak of the plague in Athens during the summer of 430 BC, “Yet it was with those who had recovered from the disease that the sick and the dying found most compassion
In 2003, work was being done to characterize a new set of B cell inhibitory receptor genes, known as the Ig superfamily receptor translocation associated genes (IRTA; Miller et al, 2002; Falini et al, 2003)
Recent work done in the surveying of B cell responses to HIV has revealed a population of B cells in the peripheral blood that appeared to share a similar phenotype to tissue-specific CD27−FCRL4+ B cells described in tonsillar tissues (Ehrhardt et al, 2005; Moir et al, 2008)
Summary
THE DISCOVERY OF IMMUNOLOGICAL MEMORY Immunological memory as a biological phenomenon has its roots in a simple, but powerful, observation; exemplified by Thucydides during an outbreak of the plague in Athens during the summer of 430 BC, “Yet it was with those who had recovered from the disease that the sick and the dying found most compassion. This idea has been challenged by human findings that have shown no serum level changes in antibodies to a panel of vaccinating antigens when individuals are stimulated with boosters or experience infection reactivation with exception to the response to the recent antigen of challenge (Amanna et al, 2007, #5460) These cells are able to respond to their antigen of interest faster than naïve B cells by not requiring cognate T cell help for activation through the receptor-intrinsic costimulation created following class-switch (Klinman and Doughty, 1973; Liu et al, 1995; Hebeis et al, 2004; Engels et al, 2009).
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