In vitro B cell activation by Th1 cells promotes the transcriptional programming of antibody-secreting cells, while B cell activation in presence of Th2 cells maintains the B cell identity transcriptional program

To investigate the role of Th1 versus Th2 cell help on B cell activation and differentiation into B cell effectors and antibody secreting cells (ASCs), we utilized an in vitro culture system to activate B cells in the presence of Th1 or Th2 polarized CD4+ T cells. To obtain an unbiased mRNA profile of these cells, we performed a kinetic mRNA profiling analysis on Be1 cells (B cells cultured with Th1 cells) or Be2 cells (B cells cultured with Th2 cells) on days 1, 2, 3, and 4 of co-culture. We used Affymetrix chip analysis to perform mRNA profiling of C57BL/6J (B6) mouse splenic B cells co-cultured with Th1 or Th2 cells for 1-4 days.