Cutting edge: polycomb gene expression patterns reflect distinct B cell differentiation stages in human germinal centers

Polycomb group (Pc-G) proteins regulate homeotic gene expression in Drosophila, mouse, and humans. Mouse Pc-G proteins are also essential for adult hematopoietic development and contribute to cell cycle regulation. We show that human Pc-G expression patterns correlate with different B cell differentiation stages and that they reflect germinal center (GC) architecture. The transition of resting mantle B cells to rapidly dividing Mib-1(Ki-67)+ follicular centroblasts coincides with loss of BMI-1 and RING1 Pc-G protein detection and appearance of ENX and EED Pc-G protein expression. By contrast, differentiation of centroblasts into centrocytes correlates with reappearance of BMI-1/RING1 and loss of ENX/EED and Mib-1 expression. The mutually exclusive expression of ENX/EED and BMI-1/RING1 reflects the differential composition of two distinct Pc-G complexes. The Pc-G expression profiles in various GC B cell differentiation stages suggest a role for Pc-G proteins in GC development.     

The human CD77- B cell population represents a heterogeneous subset of cells comprising centroblasts, centrocytes, and plasmablasts, prompting phenotypical revision

The process of becoming an Ig-producing plasma cell takes the mature B cell through the germinal center, where Ig genes are diversified through somatic hypermutation and class switch recombination. To more clearly define functional characteristics of the germinal center dark zone centroblasts and the light zone centrocytes, we have performed expression analysis of the CD77(+) and CD77(-) populations, because CD77 has been accepted as a discriminator of centroblasts and centrocytes. Our results demonstrated that the CD77(+) and the CD77(-) populations lack functional associated expression programs discriminating the two populations. Both populations are shown to be actively cycling and to share common features associated with cell cycle regulation and DNA maintenance. They are also shown to have an equally active DNA repair program, as well as components involved in somatic hypermutation and class switch recombination. Moreover, the data also demonstrated that the CD77(-) population comprises cells with an already initiated plasma cell differentiation program. Together this demonstrates that CD77 does not discriminate centroblasts and centrocytes and that the CD77(-) population represents a heterogeneous subset of cells, comprising centroblasts, centrocytes, and plasmablast.