The human spleen is a major reservoir for long-lived vaccinia virus-specific memory B cells.
The fact that you can vaccinate a child at 5 years of age and find lymphoid B cells and antibodies specific for this vaccination 70 years later remains an immunologic enigma. It has never been determined how these long-lived memory B cells are maintained and whether they are protected by storage in a special niche. We report that, whereas blood and spleen compartments present similar frequencies of IgG(+) cells, antismallpox memory B cells are specifically enriched in the spleen where they account for 0.24% of all IgG(+) cells (ie, 10-20 million cells) more than 30 years after vaccination. They represent, in contrast, only 0.07% of circulating IgG(+) B cells in blood (ie, 50-100,000 cells). An analysis of patients either splenectomized or rituximab-treated confirmed that the spleen is a major reservoir for long-lived memory B cells. No significant correlation was observed between the abundance of these cells in blood and serum titers of antivaccinia virus antibodies in this study, including in the contrasted cases of B cell-depleting treatments. Altogether, these data provide evidence that in humans, the two arms of B-cell memory--long-lived memory B cells and plasma cells--have specific anatomic distributions--spleen and bone marrow--and homeostatic regulation.
Mamani-Matsuda
Maria
M
Inserum U783, Développement du Système Immunitaire, Université Paris Descartes, Faculté de Médecine, Site Necker-Enfants Malades, Paris, France.
Cosma
Antonio
A
Weller
Sandra
S
Faili
Ahmad
A
Staib
Caroline
C
Garçon
Loïc
L
Hermine
Olivier
O
Beyne-Rauzy
Odile
O
Fieschi
Claire
C
Pers
Jacques-Olivier
JO
Arakelyan
Nina
N
Varet
Bruno
B
Sauvanet
Alain
A
Berger
Anne
A
Paye
François
F
Andrieu
Jean-Marie
JM
Michel
Marc
M
Godeau
Bertrand
B
Buffet
Pierre
P
Reynaud
Claude-Agnès
CA
Weill
Jean-Claude
JC
D001402:B-Lymphocytes / Q000276:immunology* / Q000821:virology*; D016022:Case-Control Studies; D006801:Humans; D007074:Immunoglobulin G; D007156:Immunologic Memory; D013154:Spleen / Q000166:cytology* / Q000276:immunology; D013156:Splenectomy; D014616:Vaccinia virus / Q000276:immunology*
D007074:Immunoglobulin G