How Do You Say “B-Cell Biology” In “Vaccinology”: Translational Research In the NIAID

Abstract

B-cell antibody responses play a key role in protection from a variety of infectious diseases. It has long been appreciated that, to a large extent, protection relies on the ability of B cells to encode an immunological memory, namely, the ability to respond more quickly and robustly to reinfection with a pathogen. In fact, all vaccines are predicated on the ability to induce long-lasting immunological memory. For antibody responses, memory is encoded, in part, in long-lived, high-affinity memory B cells MBCs that can be rapidly activated by pathogen antigens to give rise to antibody-secreting cells and long-lived plasma cells that constitutively secrete antibodies maintaining a protective level of pathogen-specific antibodies [1]. Clearly, our ability to design potent, effective vaccines would profit from a detailed understanding of the mechanisms that underlie the activation of B cells in a nonimmune, immunologically-naïve individual to yield memory B cells and long-lived plasma cells.