Extrafollicular evolution of autoreactive B cells

This study aims to examine autoreactive B cell receptor repertoire evolution in a novel autoimmune model in the context of Systemic Lupus Erythematosus. Naive follicular B cells from WT B6 mice were sorted and adoptively transferred into the autoreactive transgenic strain 564Igi. The donor progeny subsets (follicular B cells, antibody-secreting cells, germinal center B cells and CD21lo cells) were analyzed after 6-7 days, the repertoires of which were compared to that of pre-transfer donor cells. Clonal information of each subset was analyzed and compared with the goal of understanding the developmental trajectory of autoreactive early-arising antibody secreting cells.