Follicular helper T Cells and the B cells they help
Bibliographic record
Abstract
CD4 T cells help B cells produce antibodies following antigen challenge. This response classically occurs in germinal centers (GC) located in B-cell follicles of secondary lymphoid organs (SLO), a site of immunoglobulin isotype switching and affinity maturation. GC formation requires specialized CD4 T cells, T-follicular helper (Tfh) cells, which localize to follicles and provide B cells with survival and differentiation signals that are essential for B-cell maturation into memory and long-lived plasma cells. Pathogenic autoantibodies in human and murine lupus arise in a like manner. Although Tfh cells are critical for GC development, their genesis in humans, role in promotion of autoimmunity, and potential as therapeutic targets in SLE are incompletely understood. To address these issues, we dissected Tfh cell development and function, defining their transcriptional regulation, migration, and function in vivo in normal and lupus-prone mice and ex vivo in normal humans and patients with SLE. We used a combination of approaches - flow cytometry, confocal microscopy, microarrays, quantitative chromatin immunoprecipitation and DNA sequencing (ChIP-seq), retroviral overexpression, and T-cell-B-cell helper assays - to characterize Tfh cells in normal mice and in lupus-prone strains, and from the tonsils of normal humans and the blood of patients with SLE. We found that the transcription factor Bcl6 (B-cell CLL/lymphoma 6) is necessary and sufficient for Tfh development and function, via genetic control of Tfh proteins that are essential for their migration to B-cell follicles and GC and subsequent B-cell maturation. We dissected steps in Tfh development within SLO, beginning with their genesis in the T-cell zone followed by emigration to sites of B-cell interaction outside the B-cell follicle, where we have shown that B cells serve to provide signals for continued Tfh expansion and follicular migration. We have now begun to tease apart the factors that mediate T-cell-B-cell collaboration in the follicle; these represent therapeutic targets in SLE. Finally, we have shown that patients with SLE have expansion of Tfh cells in the blood, a finding that highlights their potential role in the pathogenesis of SLE and as likely therapeutic targets. These studies help define the developmental pathways for Tfh cells, and the steps that enable these cells to function in the B-cell follicle to promote immunoglobulin and autoantibody production. They have also helped define markers of Tfh cells in normals and autoimmune individuals, and suggest that they are a promising therapeutic target in patients.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.014 | 0.007 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".