AB1-42 Antibody Producing Plasma Cells in DNA AB42 Trimer Immunized Mice Reside Predominantly in the Bone Marrow

Alzheimer's disease (AD) is the most common form of age-related dementia and affects nearly 40 million people worldwide. Immunotherapy provides a possible avenue for prophylaxis of AD, but a clinical trial (AN1792) in which patients with early AD were immunized with Aβ1-42 peptide was halted after the occurrence of meningoencephalitis in 6% of the immunized people which was attributed to a T cell autoimmune response. DNA vaccination has been shown to have a polarized Th2 immune response that lacks many of the features responsible for inflammation seen in peptide immunizations. In this study, we show a new feature of the DNA Aβ42 trimer elicited B cell immune response and present data for the presence of a long lived plasma cell pool residing within the bone marrow in DNA immunized mice but not in peptide immunized mice. Two groups of mice were analyzed: one group of B6C3F1 mice (n=20) were studied 4 months after the last DNA vaccination, and a second group of BALB/c mice (n=14), which received DNA or peptide immunizations, were analyzed 10 days following the last immunization. The comparison of antibody producing cells in bone marrow and spleen for the DNA and peptide immunized mice with an Antibody Forming Cell (AFC) ELISPOT assay and subsequent ELISAs showed that bone marrow plasma cells from DNA immunized mice produced more anti-Aβ42 IgG producing cells and higher levels of secreted IgG antibodies. In peptide immunized mice, more IgG antibody producing cells were found to reside in the spleen. These data indicate that the bone marrow may be an important reservoir for B cells following DNA Aβ42 immunization and is in line with studies showing that the bone marrow represents an excellent niche for the survival of long lived plasma cells and a lifetime source for antibody producing B cells which are independent of continuous antigen specific stimulation. Further studies are needed to show whether it is possible to define additional phenotypic characteristics for the antigen specific B cell immune response in DNA Aβ42 trimer immunized mice or differences in the TH subsets directly involved in initial signaling events to B cells in the germinal center reactions.