1. Spec-seq unveils transcriptional subpopulations of antibody-secreting cells following influenza vaccination
- Author
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Neu, Karlynn E., Guthmiller, Jenna J., Huang, Min, La, Jennifer, Vieira, Marcos C., Kim, Kangchon, Zheng, Nai-Ying, Cortese, Mario, Tepora, Micah E., Hamel, Natalie J., Rojas, Karla Thatcher, Henry, Carole, Shaw, Dustin, Dulberger, Charles L., Pulendran, Bali, Cobey, Sarah, Khan, Aly A., and Wilson, Patrick C.
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Influenza vaccines -- Usage ,Influenza -- Prevention ,Blood plasma -- Research ,Health care industry - Abstract
Vaccines are among the most effective public health tools for combating certain infectious diseases such as influenza. The role of the humoral immune system in vaccine-induced protection is widely appreciated; however, our understanding of how antibody specificities relate to B cell function remains limited due to the complexity of polyclonal antibody responses. To address this, we developed the Spec-seq framework, which allows for simultaneous monoclonal antibody (mAb) characterization and transcriptional profiling from the same single cell. Here, we present the first application of the Spec-seq framework, which we applied to human plasmablasts after influenza vaccination in order to characterize transcriptional differences governed by B cell receptor (BCR) isotype and vaccine reactivity. Our analysis did not find evidence of long-term transcriptional specialization between plasmablasts of different isotypes. However, we did find enhanced transcriptional similarity between clonally related B cells, as well as distinct transcriptional signatures ascribed by BCR vaccine recognition. These data suggest IgG and IgA vaccine-positive plasmablasts are largely similar, whereas IgA vaccine-negative cells appear to be transcriptionally distinct from conventional, terminally differentiated, antigen-induced peripheral blood plasmablasts., IntroductionThe medical field has relied on vaccines for improving human health since the days of smallpox inoculation--long before antibodies were identified (1, 2). Vaccines induce a humoral immune response, in [...]
- Published
- 2019
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