Shining a Light on Germinal Center B Cells

Shining a Light on Germinal Center B Cells

The mechanisms of B cell selection in lymphoid tissues are poorly understood. In this issue, Victora et al. (2010) use imaging of photoactivatable green fluorescent protein to define the movements of B cells in germinal centers and provide evidence that antibody affinity maturation is driven by competition for T cell help.

AID-Expressing Germinal Center B Cells

Shining a light on optogenetics

O ptogenetics is relatively new and has attracted much interest since the first publications from the field in the early 2000s. Both researchers and the media are fascinated by the notions it conjures of bionic implants. Notwithstanding potential applications, the technology has quickly become an important research tool in neuroscience with potential for developing a range of novel therapeutic ...

Artesunate Abolishes Germinal Center B Cells and Inhibits Autoimmune Arthritis

The antimalarial drug artemisinin and its derivatives exhibit potent immunosuppressive activity in several autoimmune disease models, however the mechanisms are not well-understood. This study was designed to investigate the therapeutic effects and the underlying mechanisms of the artemisinin analog artesunate using the K/BxN mouse model of rheumatoid arthritis. The well-studied disease mechani...

Germinal center reutilization by newly activated B cells

Germinal centers (GCs) are specialized structures in which B lymphocytes undergo clonal expansion, class switch recombination, somatic hypermutation, and affinity maturation. Although these structures were previously thought to contain a limited number of isolated B cell clones, recent in vivo imaging studies revealed that they are in fact dynamic and appear to be open to their environment. We ...