Persistent expression of autoantibodies in SLE patients in remission.
A majority of the antibodies expressed by nascent B cells in healthy humans are self-reactive, but most of these antibodies are removed from the repertoire during B cell development. In contrast, untreated systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) patients fail to remove many of the self-reactive and polyreactive antibodies from the naive repertoire. Here, we report that SLE patients in clinical remission continue to produce elevated numbers of self-reactive and polyreactive antibodies in the mature naive B cell compartment, but the number of B cells expressing these antibodies is lower than in patients with active disease. Our finding that abnormal levels of self-reactive mature naive B cells persist in the majority of patients in clinical remission suggests that early checkpoint abnormalities are an integral feature of SLE.
Yurasov
Sergey
S
Laboratory of Molecular Immunology, The Rockefeller University, New York, NY 10021, USA.
Tiller
Thomas
T
Tsuiji
Makoto
M
Velinzon
Klara
K
Pascual
Virginia
V
Wardemann
Hedda
H
Nussenzweig
Michel C
MC
D000293:Adolescent; D001323:Autoantibodies / Q000276:immunology*; D001402:B-Lymphocytes / Q000276:immunology*; D002648:Child; D004797:Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assay; D005260:Female; D019084:Fluorescent Antibody Technique, Indirect; D005803:Genes, Immunoglobulin / Q000235:genetics; D006801:Humans; D008180:Lupus Erythematosus, Systemic / Q000276:immunology*; D008297:Male; D020133:Reverse Transcriptase Polymerase Chain Reaction
D001323:Autoantibodies