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Published on: April 20, 2021
Strong antigenic selection shaping the immunoglobulin heavy chain repertoire of B-1a lymphocytes in lambda 2(315)
Karsten Kretschmer1, Holger Engel, Siegfried Weiss
1Molecular Immunology, GBF, German Research Centre for Biotechnology, Braunschweig, Germany. kkr@gbf.de
The B lymphocyte compartment of the recombinant mouse line L2 consists predominantly of CD5(+) B-1 cells that exclusively express the transgenic (Tg) lambda 2 L chain of the plasmacytoma MOPC315. Using such Tg mice as a simplified model to study positive selection processes, we show that restriction to a single L chain results in a strongly oligoclonal IgH chain repertoire in fetal and neonatal liver-derived B cells, as well as in peritoneal CD5(+) B-1 lymphocytes from adult mice. In contrast, in vitro differentiated fetal liver Pro/PreB-I cells from L2 embryos show a clear increase of complementarity determining region three (CDR3) diversity. These data suggest that the antibody repertoire of B-1a cells is strongly selected by antigen during fetal as well as adult peritoneal phase.
The B lymphocyte compartment of the recombinant mouse line L2 consists predominantly of CD5(+) B-1 cells that exclusively express the transgenic (Tg) lambda 2 L chain of the plasmacytoma MOPC315. Using such Tg mice as a simplified model to study positive selection processes, we show that restriction to a single L chain results in a strongly oligoclonal IgH chain repertoire in fetal and neonatal liver-derived B cells, as well as in peritoneal CD5(+) B-1 lymphocytes from adult mice. In contrast, in vitro differentiated fetal liver Pro/PreB-I cells from L2 embryos show a clear increase of complementarity determining region three (CDR3) diversity. These data suggest that the antibody repertoire of B-1a cells is strongly selected by antigen during fetal as well as adult peritoneal phase.
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