Tweet
Science
. 2021 Apr 12;eabf6648.
doi: 10.1126/science.abf6648. Online ahead of print.
Shared B cell memory to coronaviruses and other pathogens varies in human age groups and tissues
Fan Yang 1 , Sandra C A Nielsen 2 , Ramona A Hoh 2 , Katharina R?ltgen 2 , Oliver Fabian Wirz 2 , Emily Haraguchi 2 , Grace H Jean 2 , Ji-Yeun Lee 2 , Tho D Pham 2 3 , Katherine J L Jackson 4 , Krishna M Roskin 5 6 7 , Yi Liu 8 , Khoa Nguyen 2 , Robert S Ohgami 9 , Eleanor M Osborne 10 , Kari C Nadeau 11 12 , Claus U Niemann 13 14 , Julie Parsonnet 15 16 , Scott D Boyd 1 11
Affiliations
- PMID: 33846272
- DOI: 10.1126/science.abf6648
Abstract
Vaccination and infection promote the formation, tissue distribution, and clonal evolution of B cells, which encode humoral immune memory. We evaluated convergent antigen-specific antibody genes of similar sequences shared between individuals in pediatric and adult blood, and deceased organ donor tissues. B cell memory varied for different pathogens. Polysaccharide antigen-specific clones were not exclusive to the spleen. Adults had higher clone frequencies and greater class-switching in lymphoid tissues than blood, while pediatric blood had abundant class-switched convergent clones. Consistent with reported serology, pre-pandemic children had class-switched convergent clones to SARS-CoV-2 with weak cross-reactivity to other coronaviruses, while adult blood or tissues showed few such clones. The results highlight the prominence of early childhood B cell clonal expansions and cross-reactivity for future responses to novel pathogens.