Nature Communications (Jan 2016)

Stepwise B-cell-dependent expansion of T helper clonotypes diversifies the T-cell response

  • Julia Merkenschlager,
  • Mickaël J. Ploquin,
  • Urszula Eksmond,
  • Rakieb Andargachew,
  • Georgina Thorborn,
  • Andrew Filby,
  • Marion Pepper,
  • Brian Evavold,
  • George Kassiotis

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1038/ncomms10281
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 7, no. 1
pp. 1 – 13

Abstract

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During an immune response, CD4+ T cell repertoire is thought to increase in avidity at the expense of diversity. Here the authors show that B cells act as antigen-presenting cells to boost the development of low-avidity T cell clones, diversifying the T cell repertoire at late stages of the response.