'Master' Switch Governs Antibody Production

By Michael Smith, North American Correspondent, MedPage Today Published: July 16, 2009 Reviewed by Zalman S. Agus, MD; Emeritus Professor University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine and Dorothy Caputo, MA, RN, BC-ADM, CDE, Nurse Planner

TORONTO, July 16 -- In a study with potential implications for vaccine development and autoimmune diseases, researchers have found what they call the "master regulator" of the antibody response.

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During a series of animal experiments, scientists found that the protein Bcl6 is the "on" switch that governs the production of so-called T follicular helper cells, according to Shane Crotty, PhD, of the La Jolla Institute for Allergy & Immunology in La Jolla, Calif., and colleagues.

T follicular helper cells -- known as T_FH cells for short -- are a subset of CD-positive T cells that help B cells differentiate and produce antibodies, the team reported online in Science.

In the absence of the Bcl6 protein, T_FH cells do not arise and a key step in the production of antibodies -- differentiation of germinal centers in the lymph nodes -- does not happen, the researchers showed. /.../