Virus-Specific Secondary Plasma Cells Produce Elevated Levels of High-Avidity Antibodies but Are Functionally Short Lived.

ABSTRACT: Most vaccines aim at inducing durable antibody responses and are designed to elicit strong B cell activation and plasma cell (PC) formation. Here we report characteristics of a recently described secondary PC population that rapidly originates from memory B cells (MBCs) upon challenge with virus-like particles (VLPs). Upon secondary antigen challenge, all VLP-specific MBCs proliferated and terminally differentiated to secondary PCs or died, as they could not undergo multiple rounds of re-stimulation. Secondary PCs lived in bone marrow and secondary lymphoid organs and exhibited increased production of antibodies with much higher avidity compared to primary PCs, supplying a swift wave of high avidity antibodies early after antigen recall. Unexpectedly, however, secondary PCs were functional

SUBMITTER: Krueger CC 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6691049 | biostudies-literature | 2019

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature