
Carl Borrebaeck
Professor

Expression of CD137 (4-1BB) on Human Follicular Dendritic Cells
Author
Summary, in English
Follicular dendritic cells (FDCs) are the antigen (Ag)-trapping accessory cells of the germinal centres (GCs), essential for the development of humoral immune responses and memory. FDCs reside in the microenvironment of secondary lymphoid tissue where Ag-activated B cells expand, and undergo isotype switching and affinity maturation prior to becoming memory B cells. In addition to delivering Ag, FDCs also provide potent nonspecific accessory signals to the B cells, which are important for the GC reaction. In this report, we show that human tonsilar FDCs express the costimulatory molecule CD137. Surface expression of CD137 on FDCs was confirmed by immunofluorescent labelling and fluorescence-activated cell sorter analysis. CD137 was also highly expressed by the human cell line HK, which displays many characteristics of in vivo FDCs. The interaction between B cells and FDCs is essential for the GC reactions, and our finding suggests that CD137 plays a role in FDC-regulated B-cell responses.
Department/s
- Department of Immunotechnology
- Adaptive Immunity
Publishing year
2003
Language
English
Pages
305-310
Publication/Series
Scandinavian Journal of Immunology
Volume
57
Issue
4
Links
Document type
Journal article
Publisher
Wiley-Blackwell
Topic
- Immunology in the medical area
Status
Published
Research group
- Adaptive Immunity
ISBN/ISSN/Other
- ISSN: 1365-3083