A review of progress in B cell receptor (BCR) antigen specificity / 细胞与分子免疫学杂志

B cell receptor (BCR) is a key molecule involved in B cell specific recognition and the binding of antigens to produce adaptive humoral immune response. Gene rearrangement and high frequency mutation during B cell differentiation are the main mechanisms of BCR diversification. The enormous diversity and unique molecular structure of BCR determine the diversity and specificity of antigen recognition, shaping complex B cell repertoire with extensive collections of antigen specificities. Therefore, BCR antigen-specific information is vital to understanding the adaptive immune characteristics of different diseases. Our ability to connect BCR repertoire and antigen specificity has been enhanced with the development of B cell related research technologies, such as single cell sorting techniques, high-throughput sequencing (HTS), linking B cell receptor to antigen specificity through sequencing (LIBRA-seq). It could help researchers to better understand humoral immune responses, identify disease pathogenesis, monitor disease progression, design vaccines, and develop therapeutic antibodies and drugs. We summarizes recent studies on antigen-specific BCR of infections, vaccinations, autoimmune diseases and cancer. By analyzing autoantibody sequences of SLE as a case, the identification of autoantigens has become potentially possible due to this characterization.

Influence factors of degrees of Virchow-Robin spaces in acute lacunar stroke patients / 中华神经医学杂志

Objective To investigate the influence factors of degrees of Virchow-Robin Spaces (VRS) in patients with acute first-ever lacunar stroke.Methods Two hundred and thirty-eight patients with first-ever lacunar stroke whose infractions were found in the basal ganglia (n=131) or the central semiovale (n=107) were recruited from our hospital from January 2016 to June 2017.The demographic and clinical characteristics of these patients were collected and magnetic resonance imaging was used to identify the presence and degrees of VRS in the basal ganglia (BG-VRS) and central semiovale (CSO-VRS).Logistic regression models were constructed to identify the influence factors for BG-VRS and CSO-VRS.Results The VRS scores were not statistically different between patients whose infractions were found in basal ganglia and patients whose infractions in central semiovale (P＞0.05).Univariate survival analysis indicated that gender,hypertension percentage,systolic pressure level,and body mass index (BMI) in patients from mild BG-VRS group were significantly different as compared with those in patients from severe BG-VRS group (P＜0.05);hypertension percentage,diabetes mellitus percentage,and BMI in patients from mild CSO-VRS group were significantly different as compared with those in patients from severe CSO-VRS group (P＜0.05).Multivariable Logistic regression analysis showed that hypertension and BMI could significantly influence the severity of BG-VRS (odds ratio [OR] =6.272,95％ confidence interval [CI]:1.931-20.365,P=0.002;OR=0.757,95％CI:0.619-0.927,P=0.007),and BMI could significantly influence the severity of CSO-VRS (OR=0.775,95％CI:0.655-0.918,P=0.004).Conclusion Hypertension is the independent risk factor of degrees of BG-VRS,and BMI is the protective factor of degrees of BG-VRS and CSO-VRS.