Abnormal B Lymphocyte Activation and Function in Systemic Sclerosis

Systemic sclerosis (SSc) is characterized by tissue fibrosis and autoimmunity. Although the pathogenic relationship between autoimmunity and clinical manifestations of SSc remains unknown, SSc patients display abnormal immune responses including the production of disease-specific autoantibodies. Previous studies have demonstrated that B cells play a critical role in systemic autoimmunity and disease expression through various functions such as induction of the activation of other immune cells in addition to autoantibody production. CD19 is a crucial regulator of B cell activation. Recent studies demonstrated that B cells from SSc patients showed an up-regulated CD19 signaling pathway that induced SSc-specific autoantibody production in SSc mouse models. CD19 transgenic mice lost tolerance for autoantigen and generated autoantibodies spontaneously. B cells from SSc patients exhibited an overexpression of CD19 that induced SSc-specific autoantibody production in transgenic mice. Moreover, SSc patients displayed intrinsic B cell abnormalities characterized by chronic hyper-reactivity of memory B cells, which was possibly due to CD19 overexpression. Similarly, B cells from a tight-skin mouse, a genetic model of SSc, showed augmented CD19 signaling. In bleomycin-induced SSc mouse models, endogenous ligands for toll-like receptor 4 induced by bleomycin stimulated B cells to produce various fibrogenic cytokines and autoantibodies. Remarkably, the loss of CD19 resulted in the inhibition of B cell hyper-reactivity and autoantibody production, which are associated with improvements in fibrosis and a parallel decrease in fibrogenic cytokine production by B cells. Taken together, the findings suggest that altered B cell function may result in tissue fibrosis as well as autoimmunity in SSc.