{"doi":"10.3389/fimmu.2021.727580","title":"Changes in B Cell Pool of Patients With Multibacillary Leprosy: Diminished Memory B Cell and Enhanced Mature B in Peripheral Blood","abstract":"Despite being treatable, leprosy still represents a major public health problem, and many mechanisms that drive leprosy immunopathogenesis still need to be elucidated. B cells play important roles in immune defense, being classified in different subgroups that present distinct roles in the immune response. Here, the profile of B cell subpopulations in peripheral blood of patients with paucibacillary (TT/BT), multibacillary (LL/BL) and erythema nodosum leprosum was analyzed. B cell subpopulations (memory, transition, plasmablasts, and mature B cells) and levels of IgG were analyzed by flow cytometry and ELISA, respectively. It was observed that Mycobacterium leprae infection can alter the proportions of B cell subpopulations (increase of mature and decrease of memory B cells) in patients affected by leprosy. This modulation is associated with an increase in total IgG and the patient’s clinical condition. Circulating B cells may be acting in the modulation of the immune response in patients with various forms of leprosy, which may reflect the patient’s ability to respond to M. leprae.","journal":"Frontiers in Immunology","year":2021,"id":203775,"datarank":0.26876392038420827,"base_score":1.791759469228055,"endowment":1.791759469228055,"self_citation_contribution":0.26876392038420827,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.26876392038420827,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":5,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9528,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2021-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":448882,"name":"Mariana Gandini","orcid":"0000-0003-3603-6921","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":785512,"name":"Natasha Cabral","orcid":null,"position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":785513,"name":"Vilma de Figueiredo","orcid":null,"position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":417389,"name":"Rodrigo Nunes Rodrigues‐da‐Silva","orcid":"0000-0002-9772-849X","position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":417401,"name":"Josué da Costa Lima‐Junior","orcid":"0000-0002-5848-404X","position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":448885,"name":"Roberta Olmo Pinheiro","orcid":"0000-0001-8471-4227","position":6,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":469148,"name":"Geraldo M. B. Pereira","orcid":"0000-0001-6896-5376","position":7,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":448884,"name":"María Cristina Vidal Pessolani","orcid":"0000-0003-3064-8759","position":8,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":469145,"name":"Cristiana Santos de Macedo","orcid":"0000-0002-5637-9756","position":9,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":785511,"name":"Otto Castro Nogueira","orcid":null,"position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":58,"raw_metadata":{"citation_network_status":"fetched"},"created_at":"2026-07-18T23:51:18.050175Z","pmid":"34621273","pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}