Patients with Sjögren's syndrome (SS) are prone to develop malignant lymphomas, and a correlation has been established between the lymphoproliferations occurring in these disorders and the presence in patients' blood of an unusual B cell population that down-regulates complement receptor 2/CD21. This study was undertaken to identify the B cell compartment from which these lymphoproliferations emerge and determine the mechanisms that promote clonal B cell expansion in patients with SS.
The reactivity of antibodies expressed by CD19+CD10-CD27-IgM+CD21
Clonal expansions were identified in CD21
Clonal lymphoproliferations in patients with SS preferentially accumulate in the autoreactive CD21