University of Pennsylvania ScholarlyCommons Publicly Accessible Penn Dissertations 2017 Characterization Of Human T-Bet-Expressing B Lymphocytes And Their Role In The Hiv Immune Response James Knox University of Pennsylvania,
[email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations Part of the Allergy and Immunology Commons, Cell Biology Commons, Immunology and Infectious Disease Commons, Medical Immunology Commons, and the Microbiology Commons Recommended Citation Knox, James, "Characterization Of Human T-Bet-Expressing B Lymphocytes And Their Role In The Hiv Immune Response" (2017). Publicly Accessible Penn Dissertations. 2742. https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations/2742 This paper is posted at ScholarlyCommons. https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations/2742 For more information, please contact
[email protected]. Characterization Of Human T-Bet-Expressing B Lymphocytes And Their Role In The Hiv Immune Response Abstract Humoral immunity is critical for the prevention and control of viral infections, yet the specific B cells and mechanisms regulating antiviral responses in humans remain poorly defined. The Th1-associated transcription factor T-bet coordinates intracellular pathogen immune responses, and recent murine studies identified a -bet-exprT essing B cell subset that mediates humoral antiviral immunity, but an analogous cell population has not been identified in humans. In this study, we sought to investigate the role of T-bet-expressing B cells during human viral infections. We identified -betT expression within the memory B cell compartment of healthy individuals and described a relationship between the transcription factor and IgG1 and IgG3, two antiviral antibody isotypes. The T-bet+ B cell population was comprised of two discrete subsets: T-bet low resting memory cells and a highly activated, transcriptionally distinct T-bet high subset displaying an atypical memory phenotype.