Abundance of a restricted fetal B cell repertoire in marrow transplant recipients

Patients undergoing bone marrow transplantation are humorally immunodeficient for one or more years post-transplant. This immunodeficiency could be partially caused by B cell repertoire restriction similar to that observed in ontogeny. To test this idea, the abundance of rearranged genomic segments bearing five variable heavy chain (VH) genes was compared in patients at several timepoints post-transplant and in immunologically normal neonates, infants and adults. The genes evaluated in the study (VH6, VH4-58p2, VH3-56p1, VH3-20p1 and VH3-13-2) were selected from those commonly utilized by fetal B cells. The assay employed quantitative PCR and oligonucleotide hybridization detection under conditions designed to detect relatively unmutated forms of these genes. In blood B cells from early post-transplant (2-5 months) patients, these VH genes were markedly overutilized compared with normal adults. B cells from late post-transplant (6-21 months) patients and from normal neonates and infants also overutilized these genes; however, to a lesser degree than early post-transplant B cells. The data suggest that, as in ontogeny, the B cell repertoire is strikingly restricted to fetal-type VH genes early post-transplant, and may become normal only very late (years) post-transplant.