The development and population dynamics of long-lived antibody secreting cells

The development and population dynamics of long-lived antibody-secreting cells

Speaker: David Tarlinton, Head of Department of Immunology and Pathology, Monash University

The molecular program controlling B cell differentiation into antibody-secreting cells is well understood, yet the basis of the heterogeneity of such secreting cells is much less clear. The term maturation is used to describe the progression of a plasma blast in the periphery to a long-lived plasma cell resident in a survival niche in the bone marrow. We have been investigating potential stages of this maturation pathway to discern the drivers of behaviour and thus the forces that potentially control the turnover of the population, which is critical in maintaining life-long immunity. Last, we examine the recruitment of plasma cells from an immune response into the long-lived pool, testing the prediction that this reflects a temporal switch in the output of the germinal centre.