RNA-seq profiles of germinal center B cells from spleens of wild-type and Il21r-deficient mice after immunization with NP-KLH

Humoral immune responses require germinal centres (GC) for antibody affinity maturation. Within GC, B-cell proliferation and mutation are segregated from affinity-based positive selection in the dark zone (DZ) and light zone (LZ) substructures, respectively. While IL21 is known to be important in affinity maturation and GC maintenance, here we show it is required for both establishing normal zone representation and preventing the accumulation of cells in G1 cell cycle stage in the GC LZ. Wildtype and IL21 receptor deficient (Il21r-/-) mice were immunized with NP-KLH in alum. Germinal center B cells were extracted from spleens 7 days, 10 days and 14 days after immunization. RNA was extracted and profiled using RNA-seq. An Illumina HiSeq 2000 was used to generate 100bp single-end sequence reads. Each sample was generated from an independent mouse.