TY - JOUR A1 - Ticha, Olga A1 - Moos, Lukas A1 - Wajant, Harald A1 - Bekeredjian-Ding, Isabelle T1 - Expression of Tumor Necrosis Factor Receptor 2 Characterizes TLR9-Driven Formation of Interleukin-10-Producing B Cells T2 - Frontiers in Immunology N2 - B cell-derived interleukin-10 (IL-10) production has been described as a hallmark for regulatory function in B lymphocytes. However, there is an ongoing debate on the origin of IL-10-secreting B cells and lack of specific surface markers has turned into an important obstacle for studying human B regulatory cells. In this study, we propose that tumor necrosis factor receptor 2 (TNFR2) expression can be used for enrichment of IL-10-secreting B cells. Our data confirm that IL-10 production can be induced by TLR9 stimulation with CpG ODN and that IL-10 secretion accompanies differentiation of peripheral blood B cells into plasma blasts. We further show that CpG ODN stimulation induces TNFR2 expression, which correlates with IL-10 secretion and terminal differentiation. Indeed, flow cytometric sorting of TNFR2+ B cells revealed that TNFR2+ and TNFR2− fractions correspond to IL-10+ and IL-10− fractions, respectively. Furthermore, CpG-induced TNFR2+ B cells were predominantly found in the IgM+ CD27+ B cell subset and spontaneously released immunoglobulin. Finally, our data corroborate the functional impact of TNFR2 by demonstrating that stimulation with a TNFR2 agonist significantly augments IL-10 and IL-6 production in B cells. Altogether, our data highlight a new role for TNFR2 in IL-10-secreting human B lymphocytes along with the potential to exploit this finding for sorting and isolation of this currently ill-defined B cell subset. KW - human KW - B cells KW - interleukin-10 KW - tumor necrosis factor receptor 2 KW - TLR 9 KW - Breg Y1 - 2018 UR - https://opus.bibliothek.uni-wuerzburg.de/opus4-wuerzburg/frontdoor/index/index/docId/24132 UR - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-241323 VL - 8 ER -