Journal
SCIENCE
Volume 331, Issue 6021, Pages 1203-1207Publisher
AMER ASSOC ADVANCEMENT SCIENCE
DOI: 10.1126/science.1201730
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Funding
- NIH [R01 AI036914, R37 AI027998, F32 AI091033, T32 CA009138]
- NIH, National Institute on Aging
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Memory B cells formed in response to microbial antigens provide immunity to later infections; however, the inability to detect rare endogenous antigen-specific cells limits current understanding of this process. Using an antigen-based technique to enrich these cells, we found that immunization with a model protein generated B memory cells that expressed isotype-switched immunoglobulins (swIg) or retained IgM. The more numerous IgM(+) cells were longer lived than the swIg(+) cells. However, swIg(+) memory cells dominated the secondary response because of the capacity to become activated in the presence of neutralizing serum immunoglobulin. Thus, we propose that memory relies on swIg(+) cells until they disappear and serum immunoglobulin falls to a low level, in which case memory resides with durable IgM(+) reserves.
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