In the past few years, major progress has been made in the understanding of the role of chemokines in T lymphocyte recruitment (1). T cells respond to CXC and CC chemokines and express many different chemokine receptors, some of which are upregulated by IL-2 (2). Of particular interest is a new group of CC chemokines that were identified recently, such as TARC (3), ELC/MIP-3β (4, 5), LARC/MIP-3
/exodus (5–7), and SLC (8), which are expressed preferentially in lymphoid tissues and are chemotactic for T lymphocytes. Another CC chemokine, DC-CK1/ PARC (9, 10) is expressed by dendritic cells of germinal centers and was reported to attract naive T lymphocytes (9), suggesting a role for the onset of immune reactions.
There is little information, however, on chemokine activities and chemokine receptor expression on B lymphocytes. Two newly identified CC chemokine receptors, CCR6 (11) and CCR7 (4), were reported to be present in T and B cells, but no ligand was found that induces chemotaxis of B lymphocytes. SDF-1, a CXC chemokine that was originally described as a growth factor for progenitor B cells, is chemotactic for human pre– and pro–B cell lines, but does not attract mature B lymphocytes (12). The search for chemokines that attract B cells was stimulated by the cloning of a receptor termed BLR1 (13) or MDR15 (14) that is highly expressed in Burkitt's lymphoma cells and B lymphocytes and has considerable structural similarity to known chemokine receptors. Deletion of the gene for BLR1 in mice (15) yielded a remarkable phenotype. The –/– animals lack inguinal lymph nodes and have a defective formation of primary follicles and germinal centers of the spleen and of Peyer's patches. Receptor-deficient B lymphocytes enter T cell areas, but do not migrate into B cell areas suggesting that the BLR1 ligand is essential for the homing of B lymphocytes and the proper development of B cell–rich regions of lymphoid tissues.
To search for the ligand of BLR1/MDR15, we screened the expressed sequence tag (EST) data bank for CXC chemokine motifs and cloned a yet uncharacterized CXC chemokine termed B cell–attracting chemokine (BCA)-1, which attracts cells transfected with BLR1. The present paper shows that BCA-1 is expressed in lymphoid tissues and is a selective and highly efficacious chemoattractant for human blood B lymphocytes.
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Materials and Methods
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Agonists.
BCA-1, reference chemokines, and neuropeptide Y (NPY) were chemically synthesized according to established protocols (16). The novel chemokines I-TAC and HCC-2 were supplied by Dr. K. Neote (Pfizer Central Research, Groton, CT) and Dr. W.G. Forssmann (Lower Saxony Institute for Peptide Research (IPF), Hannover, Germany). C5a and C3a were provided by Dr. C.A. Dahinden (University Hospital, Bern, Switzerland). Somatostatin, substance P, and calcitonin were purchased from Sigma Chemical Co. (St. Louis, MO).
Cells.
Human neutrophils (17), monocytes (18), and PBLs were isolated from donor blood buffy coats, and PBLs were activated by culturing with IL-2 (2). B lymphocytes were isolated from blood mononuclear cells by positive selection with a mouse anti–human CD20 mAb (Immunotech, Marseille, France) and MACS goat anti–mouse IgG microbeads (19) after depletion of monocytes by adherence to plastic. Purity was assessed by FACS® analysis (mouse anti–human CD19, Sigma Chemical Co.; mouse anti–human CD3, Becton Dickinson, Mountain View, CA). Before use in chemotaxis and Ca2+ mobilization assays, B lymphocytes were incubated for 30 min at 37°C.
Cloning of BCA-1.
The coding sequence of BCA-1 was generated by PCR using human spleen cDNA as template and the primers BCA-1SE, 5'-GGGCTGCAGCTCCAGACAGAATGAAGTTC, containing the start codon, and BCA-1AS, 5'-GGACTCGAGTGGAAATATCAGCATCAGGG, including the stop codon. PCR amplification was performed in volumes of 30 µl, containing 1x PCR buffer including 1.5 mM MgCl2 (GIBCO BRL, Paisley, UK), 0.4 µM primers, 280 µM dNTPs, and 2 µl of cDNA preparation. To start DNA synthesis, 1.5 U Taq-polymerase (GIBCO BRL) was added after cDNA denaturation and allowed to progress for 30 cycles (1 min at 57°C, 45 s at 72°C, 15 s at 95°C) in a master cycler (5330; Eppendorf-Netheler-Hinz, Hamburg, Germany). The amplified DNA was purified, digested with PstI and XhoI, subcloned into the vector pBluescript SK (Stratagene Corp., La Jolla, CA), and three independent clones were sequenced to completion.
BLR1 Transfectants.
BLR1 DNA was generated by PCR with cDNA from freshly isolated PBLs as template and the primers BLR1SE, 5'-TTAGAATTCGACTCACAGCCGGCACAGC, and BLR1AS, 5'-GTGAGCCCTTAGGATCCCAGC, corresponding to positions 65–83 and 1,276–1,296 of the published sequence of BLR1 (13), spanning the entire coding region of 372 amino acids. PCR amplification was performed as described (20). The amplified DNA was purified, digested with EcoRI and BamHI, subcloned into the mammalian expression vector SR
puro (provided by Dr. F. Arenzana-Seisdedos, Pasteur Institute, Paris, France), and sequenced. Stable transfectants were generated with 20 µg of linearized SR
puro-BLR1 plasmid DNA in murine pre–B cells 300–19 (5 x 106 cells in 400 µl RPMI 1640; reference 21). Clones were established by limiting dilution in the presence of 1.5 µg/ml puromycin (Sigma Chemical Co.) and screened for BLR1 expression by RNA dot blot analysis.
Ca2+ Responses to Chemokines.
Changes in the cytosolic free intracellular Ca2+ concentration ([Ca2+]i) were measured in cells loaded with fura-2 by incubation for 25 min at 37°C with 0.1 nmol fura-2/AM per 106 cells in a buffer containing 136 mM NaCl, 4.8 mM KCl, 1 mM CaCl2, 5 mM glucose, and 20 mM Hepes, pH 7.4. After centrifugation, loaded cells were resuspended in the same buffer (2 x 106 cells in 800 µl), stimulated with the indicated chemokine at 37°C, and the [Ca2+]i-related fluorescence changes were recorded (22).
In Vitro Chemotaxis.
Cell migration was assessed in triplicate in 48-well chambers as described by Loetscher et al. (23). RPMI 1640 supplemented with 20 mM Hepes, pH 7.4, and 1% pasteurized human plasma protein solution (Swiss Red Cross Laboratory, Bern, Switzerland) was used to dissolve the chemokines and to suspend the cells. The duration of the assay was 120 min for BLR1 transfectants, parental 300-19 cells, and B lymphocytes; 60 min for T lymphocytes; and 25 min for neutrophils and monocytes. Migrating cells were stained on the lower side of the filters and counted at x1,000 magnification in five randomly selected fields.
Expression was measured by Northern and dot blot analysis using a human RNA Master BlotTM and a human Immune System Multiple Tissue Blot IITM (Clontech, Palo Alto, CA) as described (2, 23). A 32P-labeled complete BCA-1 DNA (2 x 109 cpm/µg) was used as hybridization probe at 5 x 106 cpm/ml hybridization solution.
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Results and Discussion
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BCA-1 DNA and Protein.
A partial sequence of a putative human CXC chemokine was recently derived from the EST DNA sequence T39765 (24). Using T39765 as probe we searched the EST cDNA databank and identified two additional sequences, AA298459 and T55152, providing the missing 5'- and 3'-sequence information. The resulting DNA of 663 nucleotides has a putative open reading frame of 327 nucleotides preceded by a stretch with high similarity to the consensus of translation initiation sequences of vertebrates (25). DNA containing the whole coding region of BCA-1 was generated by PCR using spleen cDNA and specific oligonucleotide primers. Three independent clones were sequenced to completion and found to be identical. They differ from the EST-derived sequence at position 47–48 (GC instead of CG) yielding a threonine instead of a serine at position 16. The translated cDNA consists of 109 amino acids (Fig. 1 a) and contains a hydrophobic sequence followed by a putative cleavage site between residues 22 and 23. The predicted secreted form of 87 residues was chemically synthesized and shown to activate cells expressing BLR1, indicating that it is a functional form of the chemokine. In view of the biological activities described below the chemokine was termed BCA-1. The four cysteines of BCA-1 align with those of CXC chemokines. In addition BCA-1 has an arginine residue immediately preceding the first cysteine, a feature that is conserved in all CXC chemokines except platelet factor 4. Overall, it shares 24–34% sequence identity with CXC chemokines. However, evolutionary distance comparison indicates that BCA-1 is not closely related to any particular group of chemokines. Like SDF-1, it appears to be segregated within the CXC chemokine subfamily (Fig. 1 b).
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