Immune Functions and Therapeutic Potential of B Lymphocytes in Autoimmune Disorders

A special issue of Cells (ISSN 2073-4409). This special issue belongs to the section "Cellular Immunology".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 20 April 2025 | Viewed by 1616

Special Issue Editor


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Guest Editor
1. Graduate Institute of Biomedical Sciences, China Medical University Taichung, Taichung, Taiwan
2. Institute National de la Santé et de la Recherche Médicale (INSERM), Paris, France
Interests: immune tolerance; autoimmunity; epigenetics; B lymphocytes; innate immunity; biotherapeutics
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Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Autoimmune disorders (AID) comprise over eighty diseases and affect millions of individuals worldwide. They can target virtually any tissue in an organism and lead to a multitude of symptoms and, in severe cases, to mortality. Their causes remain under investigation, and several mechanisms have been proposed. Disease management efforts face various challenges due to the incomplete understanding of their etiologies, the complexity of genetic susceptibility, the contribution of a number of environmental factors, the variable latency between exposure to the trigger(s) and clinical manifestations, and the array of disease phenotypes. Nevertheless, treatment options for AID have made significant progress, evolving from immunosuppressive mediations to the more selective targeting of a single receptor or a specific pathway, with fewer off-target effects.

AID are characterized by loss of immune tolerance to self-antigens. While several immune cell types are aberrantly activated in AID, the B cell lineage is essential for both initiating and propagating the disease process. As a result, the broad immunotherapeutic targeting of B cells has entered the clinical arena, including specific B cell depletion. However, current approaches eradicate not only self-reactive B cells but also B cell subsets that play a protective role in immune defense. Therefore, a better understanding of B cell deregulations in AID could lead to more optimized targeted therapeutics.

This Special Issue will consist of insightful articles that assist in gaining a greater understanding of the multiple roles of B lymphocytes in the initiation and progression of autoimmune reactions, as well as the novel therapeutic approaches designed to prevent and/or to treat AID. Both original research articles and review papers will be considered.

Dr. Moncef M. Zouali
Guest Editor

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Keywords

  • engineered immune cells
  • autoimmune disease
  • B lymphocyte
  • animal models
  • immune tolerance

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Published Papers (1 paper)

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Research

25 pages, 7822 KiB  
Article
Regulatory B Cells Expressing Granzyme B from Tolerant Renal Transplant Patients: Highly Differentiated B Cells with a Unique Pathway with a Specific Regulatory Profile and Strong Interactions with Immune System Cells
by Nicolas Sailliet, Amandine Dupuy, François Brinas, Karine Renaudin, Luc Colas, Clarisse Kerleau, Thi-Van-Ha Nguyen, Cynthia Fourgeux, Jérémie Poschmann, Clément Gosset, Magali Giral, Nicolas Degauque, Hoa Le Mai, Richard Danger and Sophie Brouard
Cells 2024, 13(15), 1287; https://doi.org/10.3390/cells13151287 - 31 Jul 2024
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Abstract
The aim of our study was to determine whether granzyme B-expressing regulatory B cells (GZMB+ B cells) are enriched in the blood of transplant patients with renal graft tolerance. To achieve this goal, we analysed two single-cell RNA sequencing (scRNAseq) datasets: (1) [...] Read more.
The aim of our study was to determine whether granzyme B-expressing regulatory B cells (GZMB+ B cells) are enriched in the blood of transplant patients with renal graft tolerance. To achieve this goal, we analysed two single-cell RNA sequencing (scRNAseq) datasets: (1) peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs), including GZMB+ B cells from renal transplant patients, i.e., patients with stable graft function on conventional immunosuppressive treatment (STA, n = 3), drug-free tolerant patients (TOL, n = 3), and patients with antibody-mediated rejection (ABMR, n = 3), and (2) ex-vivo-induced GZMB+ B cells from these groups. In the patient PBMCs, we first showed that natural GZMB+ B cells were enriched in genes specific to Natural Killer (NK) cells (such as NKG7 and KLRD1) and regulatory B cells (such as GZMB, IL10, and CCL4). We performed a pseudotemporal trajectory analysis of natural GZMB+ B cells and showed that they were highly differentiated B cells with a trajectory that is very different from that of conventional memory B cells and linked to the transcription factor KLF13. By specifically analysing GZMB+ natural B cells in TOLs, we found that these cells had a very specific transcriptomic profile associated with a reduction in the expression of HLA molecules, apoptosis, and the inflammatory response (in general) in the blood and that this signature was conserved after ex vivo induction, with the induction of genes associated with migration processes, such as CCR7, CCL3, or CCL4. An analysis of receptor/ligand interactions between these GZMB+/− natural B cells and all of the immune cells present in PBMCs also demonstrated that GZMB+ B cells were the B cells that carried the most ligands and had the most interactions with other immune cells, particularly in tolerant patients. Finally, we showed that these GZMB+ B cells were able to infiltrate the graft under inflammatory conditions, thus suggesting that they can act in locations where immune events occur. Full article
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