Chronic BCR signaling generates and maintains age-associated B cells from anergic B cell
We report here that ABCs exhibited a unique phenotype in aging and lupus model mice, where BCR signaling is constitutively activated, and surface BCRs are internalized. Autoreactive anergic B cells exclusively differentiated into ABCs in a BCR-dependent manner in vivo. Additionally, anergic B cells showed enhanced ABC differentiation in vitro compared to naive B cells. This was suppressed by Nr4a1 expression, possibly due to the inhibition of several signaling pathways, including BCR. Overall design: To investigate gene expression pattern of Nr4a1 overexpressed B cells in ABC inductive stimuli, we retoroviruslly transducted Nr4a1 in B cells stimulated with ABC inductive stimuli. Infected GFP+ B cells were purified by FACS sorting. CD43 naive B cells, mock transduced B cells were sampled by controls. These B cell subsets were subjected to generate cDNA libraries for RNA-seq analysis. We then performed comparative gene expression analysis to identify the characteristics of gene expression shaped in Nr4a1 overexpressed B cells.