Utilisation of these mAbs in
other assay platforms should also be investigated. The following are the supplementary data related to this article. Supplementary data 1. “
“B cells are important for the immunity against both bacterial and viral infections (Ahmed and Gray, 1996). Two major B-cell populations that contribute to the maintenance of immunological memory are long-lived plasma cells and memory B cells. The long-lived plasma cells reside primarily in the bone marrow Natural Product Library research buy (McHeyzer-Williams and Ahmed, 1999 and Amanna and Slifka, 2010) and continuously secrete antibodies that act rapidly on invading microbes. Memory B cells reside primarily in peripheral lymphoid tissues and can, upon re-encounter with the priming antigen, differentiate into antibody-secreting cells (ASC)
and thus amplify the antibody response (McHeyzer-Williams and Ahmed, 1999). During infection, or after vaccination, the body produces both long-lived plasma cells and memory B cells that provide selleck chemical an immunological memory. Conventionally, B-cell responses are assessed by the serological measurement of specific antibodies, often expected to correlate with protection (Plotkin, 2010). However, analysis limited to the measurement of serum antibody levels by e.g. ELISA can be misleading as it excludes the detection of the memory B-cell pool. Memory B cells can exist in the absence of detectable serum antibody levels (West and Calandra, 1996 and Bauer and Jilg, 2006) and their rapid differentiation and antibody production may be of high relevance for a protective humoral response. The combined use of methods for the analysis of B cells and serum antibody levels may
therefore give a more complete picture of an individual’s B-cell mediated immune response. The B-cell ELISpot was first described in 1983 (Czerkinsky et al., 1983) and has proven to be an important method for the detection of IgG-producing B cells. The assay has also been further developed for the detection of antigen-specific plasma blasts and memory B cells (Bernasconi et al., 2002, Crotty et al., 2004, Bauer and Jilg, 2006, Vallerskog Tolmetin et al., 2008, Buisman et al., 2009 and Cao et al., 2010). Whereas active plasma blasts, potentially present in the blood, can be examined directly without in vitro activation in a B-cell ELISpot, memory B cells require pre-stimulation in order to differentiate into detectable ASC. Bernasconi et al. showed that memory B cells differentiate after stimulation with an antigen-independent polyclonal activator (Bernasconi et al., 2002) and most protocols used include such an activator in combination with other stimuli. Common polyclonal activators used are CpG (a Toll-like receptor [TLR] 9 agonist), pokeweed mitogen (PWM) and Staphylococcus aureus Cowan (SAC) often combined with CD40-ligand (CD40L) and/or cytokines like interleukin (IL-) 2 and IL-10 ( Crotty et al., 2004, Buisman et al.