Journal
BLOOD
Volume 116, Issue 18, Pages 3445-3455Publisher
AMER SOC HEMATOLOGY
DOI: 10.1182/blood-2009-10-250423
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Funding
- Medical Research Council [MC_U120036884] Funding Source: researchfish
- MRC [MC_U120036884] Funding Source: UKRI
- Medical Research Council [MC_U120036884] Funding Source: Medline
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Apoptosis of short-lived plasma cells after a few days of intense immunoglobulin secretion is critical for maintaining a controlled humoral immune response. The mechanisms that regulate this process are poorly understood. Here we report that the key apoptotic caspases, caspase-3 and caspase-9, become resistant to activation by apoptotic stimuli when B cells differentiate into short-lived plasma cells. As a consequence, apoptosis of most short-lived plasma cells in vitro and in vivo is effector caspaseindependent. We also show that a triaspartic acid repeat that normally prevents activation of caspase-3 becomes stabilized in short-lived plasma cells and myeloma cell lines. The block on caspase activation occurs before the accumulation of intracellular immunoglobulins and a progressive rise in secretory stress in the endoplasmic reticulum (ER). Plasma cells show increased susceptibility to ER stress-induced apoptosis and activate the ER-associated caspase-12, which is required specifically for nuclear apoptotic events. In nonlymphoid cells that cannot activate effector caspases, programmed cell death is delayed in response to ER stress. These observations suggest that the block on activation of key apoptotic caspases has evolved in short-lived plasma cells to prolong survival under conditions of ER stress resulting from high-level immunoglobulin secretion. (Blood. 2010;116(18):3445-3455)
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