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The Human CD77^– B Cell Population Represents a Heterogeneous Subset of Cells Comprising Centroblasts, Centrocytes, and Plasmablasts, Prompting Phenotypical Revision¹

Department of Immunotechnology, Lund University, Lund, Sweden

The process of becoming an Ig-producing plasma cell takes the mature B cell through the germinal center, where Ig genes are diversified through somatic hypermutation and class switch recombination. To more clearly define functional characteristics of the germinal center dark zone centroblasts and the light zone centrocytes, we have performed expression analysis of the CD77⁺ and CD77^– populations, because CD77 has been accepted as a discriminator of centroblasts and centrocytes. Our results demonstrated that the CD77⁺ and the CD77^– populations lack functional associated expression programs discriminating the two populations. Both populations are shown to be actively cycling and to share common features associated with cell cycle regulation and DNA maintenance. They are also shown to have an equally active DNA repair program, as well as components involved in somatic hypermutation and class switch recombination. Moreover, the data also demonstrated that the CD77^– population comprises cells with an already initiated plasma cell differentiation program. Together this demonstrates that CD77 does not discriminate centroblasts and centrocytes and that the CD77^– population represents a heterogeneous subset of cells, comprising centroblasts, centrocytes, and plasmablast.

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¹ This study was supported by the Faculty of Technology, Lund University, and in part supported by a Translational Research Grant from The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society (Contract 6085-06).

² Address correspondence and reprint requests to Dr. Carl A. K. Borrebaeck, Department of Immunotechnology, Lund University, BMC D13, 221 84 Lund, Sweden. E-mail address: Carl.Borrebaeck{at}immun.lth.se

³ Abbreviations used in this paper: GC, germinal center; SHM, somatic hypermutation; CSR, class switch recombination; AID, activation-induced cytidine deaminase; UNG, uracil-DNA glycosylase; BCL, B cell line; BER, base excision repair; MMR, mismatch repair; HR, homologous recombination.