International Immunology Advance Access originally published online on February 16, 2007
International Immunology 2007 19(4):365-373; doi:10.1093/intimm/dxm002
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Follicular exclusion of autoreactive B cells requires Fc
RIIb
1 Department of Pediatrics, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA
2 Division of Pediatric Nephrology, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, MA, USA
3 Department of Pathology, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA
4 CBR Institute for Biomedical Research, Boston, MA, USA
Correspondence to: E. Paul; E-mail: epaul{at}partners.org
In non-autoimmune mice, the 3H9 transgenic Ig heavy chain can pair with endogenous Ig
1 light chains to generate B cells with specificity for DNA. These autoreactive cells are actively regulated in vivo, as indicated by the exclusion of
1 cells from the splenic B cell follicle and the absence of auto-antibody production. To study the role of Fc
receptor IIb (Fc
RIIb) in peripheral B cell tolerance, Fc
RIIb–/– mice were crossed with C57BL/6 mice bearing a site-directed knock-in of the 3H9 transgene. 3H9Fc
RIIb–/– mice become autoreactive, lose the follicular exclusion of anti-DNA B cells and instead have
1 B cells located within splenic germinal centers. They have increased frequencies of splenic auto-antibody-producing cells and elevated titers of IgG anti-DNA auto-antibody. The data implicate an Fc
RIIb-dependent checkpoint that can exclude autoreactive B cells from splenic follicles. By restricting their participation in germinal center reactions, this putative checkpoint helps attenuate the production of potentially pathogenic auto-antibodies. The data further suggest that this Fc
RIIb-dependent regulation is B cell autonomous.
Keywords: autoimmunity, Fc receptors, lupus, rodent, tolerance
* These authors contributed equally to this work.
Transmitting editor: R. S. Geha
Received 12 August 2006, accepted 9 January 2007.
![]()
CiteULike
Connotea
Del.icio.us What's this?
This article has been cited by other articles:
![]() |
Y. Liu, L. Li, and C. Mohan The Role of Rearrangement at the Second Ig Heavy Chain Locus in Maintaining B Cell Tolerance to DNA J. Immunol., June 1, 2008; 180(11): 7721 - 7727. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF] |
||||
