The two waves of B-lymphocyte differentiation.
The recombinant DNA revolution has struck cellular immunology with great force, but it has not yet illuminated B-lymphocyte physiology as much as it should have. The problems of the second wave of B-cell differentiation, the post-antigenic wave, will be solved relatively soon, as genetically engineered B-cell-active factors become available. Speculatively, I predict the existence of 3-4 separate factors, each possessing both growth and differentiation activity. The problems of the first set of differentiative processes, those leading to B-lymphocyte genesis, remain frustratingly inaccessible. Just to start an argument, I will speculate that IL-3 will not be involved here, but rather that we must search for non-T-cell-derived (non-lymphokine) factors produced by specialized cells (not macrophages) in the foetal liver or the bone marrow. I issue a challenge to the participants in this forum to reveal how they would go about devising a tissue culture system which at least approximates living bone marrow in its immense potential for B-cell production, because until this is done, the most interesting segment of the whole process will remain a black box.
D000818:Animals; D001402:B-Lymphocytes / Q000166:cytology* / Q000276:immunology; D001854:Bone Marrow Cells; D002448:Cell Adhesion; D002454:Cell Differentiation; D002455:Cell Division; D005260:Female; D008099:Liver / Q000196:embryology; D051379:Mice; D011247:Pregnancy