Medical Sciences Commons^™

Cd40 Ligand Expression Is Defective In A Subset Of Patients With Common Variable Immunodeficiency., Mary Farrington, Laura S. Grosmaire, Shigeaki Nonoyama, Susanna H. Fischer, Diane Hollenbaugh, Jeffrey A. Ledbetter, R. J. Noelle

Dartmouth Scholarship

Common variable immunodeficiency (CVI) is characterized by hypogammaglobulinemia and recurrent bacterial infections due to failure of CVI B cells to differentiate in vivo into immunoglobulin-secreting plasma cells. We hypothesized that T-cell dysfunction resulting in abnormal contact-mediated B-cell activation may play a prominent role in the failure of CVI B cells to produce specific antibody. We have previously shown that B-cell proliferation and IgE production after stimulation with anti-CD40 and interleukin (IL) 4 were normal in 22 CVI patients evaluated, indicating that CVI B cells respond to signals delivered via CD40. Here we report that CD40 ligand (gp39) mRNA expression by …