Open Access

ORIGINAL ARTICLE

IL-10 induces TGF-β secretion, TGF-β receptor II upregulation, and IgA secretion in B cells

Yasser Bagheri^1,2,3, Fateme Babaha⁴, Reza Falak^1,2, Reza Yazdani³, Gholamreza Azizi⁵, Maryam Sadri¹, Hassan Abolhassani^3,6, Mehdi Shekarabi^1,2, Asghar Aghamohammadi³

1 Iran University of Medical Sciences, School of Medicine, Department of Immunology, Tehran, Iran
2 Iran University of Medical Sciences, Institute of Immunology and Infectious Diseases, Immunology Research Center (IRC), Tehran, Iran
3 Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Pediatrics Center of Excellence, Children’s Medical Center, Research Center for Immunodeficiencies, Tehran, Iran
4 Tarbiat Modares University, Faculty of Medical Sciences, Department of Immunology, Tehran, Iran
5 Alborz University of Medical Sciences, Non-Communicable Diseases Research Center, Karaj, Iran
6 Karolinska Institute at Karolinska University Hospital Huddinge, Department of Laboratory Medicine, Division of Clinical Immunology, Stockholm, Sweden

* Corresponding Authors: Mehdi Shekarabi, , ; Asghar Aghamohammadi,

European Cytokine Network 2019, 30(3), 107-113. https://doi.org/10.1684/ ecn.2019.0434

Abstract

Background: Interleukin-10 (IL-10) is a pleiotropic cytokine, which has both regulatory and stimulatory effects on different immune cell types. Different studies have reported the importance of IL-10 and Transforming growth factor-beta (TGF-β) in the regulation of B cell class switching the production of immunoglobulin A (IgA); however, the underlying mechanisms remain to be fully elucidated. The objective of this study was to investigate the TGF-β response during B stimulation of human B cells by IL-10. Methods: Pan B cells of healthy donors were negatively purified by a magnetic cell separation technique. B cells were cultured with multimeric CD40 ligand (mCD40L) and IL-10 for two and seven days. After harvesting in specific days, TGF-β receptor II and surface IgA expression was determined by flow cytometry, while IgA and TGF-β secretion was assessed by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay. Results: B cells endogenously expressed TGF-β receptor II and after 48 hours cultivation with mCD40L or mCD40L plus IL-10, both the expression of this receptor and the production of TGF-β were significantly increased. Notably, TGF-β levels following stimulation with mCD40L and IL-10 were higher than those produced by B cells stimulated with mCD40L alone. Furthermore, at day 7 and following IL-10 stimulation, there was a significant rise in the amount of IgA secretion by class-switched plasma cells, which was higher than stimulation with mCD40L alone. Conclusion: Our findings suggest that IL-10 can modulate TGF-β production and TGF-β receptor expression in mCD40-activated human B lymphocytes.

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