Germinal center B cells recognize antigen through a specialized immune synapse architecture

B cell activation is regulated by B cell antigen receptor (BCR) signaling and antigen internalization in immune synapses. Using large-scale imaging across B cell subsets, we found that, in contrast with naive and memory B cells, which gathered antigen toward the synapse center before internalization, germinal center (GC) B cells extracted antigen by a distinct pathway using small peripheral clusters. Both naive and GC B cell synapses required proximal BCR signaling, but GC cells signaled less through the protein kinase C-β–NF-κB pathway and produced stronger tugging forces on the BCR, thereby more stringently regulating antigen binding. Consequently, GC B cells extracted antigen with better affinity discrimination than naive B cells, suggesting that specialized biomechanical patterns in B cell synapses regulate T cell–dependent selection of high-affinity B cells in GCs.

• Publication year

  2016

• Venue

  Nature Immunology

• Publication date

  2016-05-16

• Fields of study

  Biology, Medicine

• Identifiers
  DOI 10.1038/ni.3458PMID 27183103PMCID 4943528
• External record

  Open on Semantic Scholar

• Source metadata

  Semantic Scholar, PubMed

• No claims are published for this paper.

• No concepts are published for this paper.

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