Immunodynamics

Long-lived plasma cells produce antibodies and are important players of immunological memory. They protect the body from recurrent infections. In the course of certain autoimmune diseases, however, long-lived plasma cells can produce autoantibodies which are detrimental.
The survival of long-lived plasma cells depends on extrinsic signals. It is therefore necessary to analyse their composition in the spatial context of the surrounding tissue. We have developed a novel microscopy technology, which allows us to follow the dynamic processes in these niches deep in the bone marrow over extended time periods. We could show that the blood vessels surrounding the plasma cell niches are highly dynamic and change their localisation relative to plasma cells. We are now investigating to what extent these changes affect plasma cells and the composition of the niches. We are also using multiplexed histological analyses, which allows us to stain up to 80 markers on one single tissue section, in order to decipher the code of the plasma cell niches.

Plasma cells can also be found in high numbers in the gut mucosa, where they produce massive amounts of IgA. We could show that a fraction of those plasma cells can become long-lived. Niches for long-lived IgA+ plasma cells derived from mucosal immune responses are present within the intestinal lamina propria, but also within the bone marrow. We are investigating whether gut-derived plasma cells include autoreactive cells.

In addition to the physiological sites described above, plasma cells can survive in a number of other tissues under conditions of chronic inflammation. We could show that long-lived plasma cells can persist even in the central nervous system, a tissue void of immune cells in healthy individuals. Consequently, we are now investigating whether antibodies produced by those intracerebral plasma cells contribute to neuronal damage, for example in multiple sclerosis (MS).

Group leader
Univ. Prof. Dr. med. vet. Anja Hauser

Ph.D. students
Luise Asmussen
Yu Cao
Johanna Ehl
Henrike Germar
Sandy Kroh
Alina Liebheit
Till Mertens
Raphael Raspe

Technicians
Pendar Alirezazadeh
Robert Günther
Ralf Uecker

Prof. R. Niesner, Prof. C. Romagnani, Prof. A. Triantafyllopoulou, Dr. M. F. Mashreghi, Prof. G. Duda, Prof. H. Prüß, Dr. H. Radbruch. Dr. L Ostendorf, PD Dr. P. Enghard

Prof. T. Schulz, DIfE (Potsdam-Rehbrücke)

Prof. R. Voll (Freiburg), Prof. K. Warnatz (Freiburg), Prof. M. Rizzi (Freiburg), Prof. D. Mielenz (Erlangen), Prof. L. Nitschke (Erlangen), Prof. D. Grün (Würzburg Institute for Systems Immunology), Prof. A. Cerwenka (Universitätsmedizin Mannheim), Prof. J. Nattermann (Universitätsklinikum Bonn), Dr. A. Manukyan (Group of Dr. A. Alkalin, BIMSB Berlin), Prof. Susanne Hartmann and Dr. S. Rausch, (FU Berlin)

BioDecipher GmbH (Magdeburg), Miltenyi Biotec (Bergisch Gladbach)

• Prof. Kai-Michael Toellner, Babraham Institute (Cambridge, UK)
• Dr. Anna Pascual-Reguant, Centro Nacional de Análisis Genómico (Barcelona, Spain)
• Prof. Klaus Eyer (Aarhus, Denmark)
• Prof. Kristina Broliden and Dr. Annelie Tjernlund (Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden)

Scott Domingue PhD, THORLabs Inc., Newton, NJ, USA