Acquisition and maturation of expressed B cell repertoires in normal and autoimmune mice.

The expressed B cell repertoires of mice from 1 day to 5 mo of age were examined. The ELISA-spot assay was used to enumerate individual Ig-secreting splenic B cells and determine the proportion of these cells producing antibodies reactive with each of six autoantigens and two conventional Ag. Results indicate that i) neonatal B cells producing antibodies against specific members of the Ag panel arose in a temporally defined sequence, ii) antibodies produced by 1- to 5-wk-old mice appeared to be more cross-reactive than those produced by adult mice, iii) no bias toward autoantibody production was found in the neonatal repertoires of autoimmune-prone mice, and iv) as a whole, the pattern of repertoire development among diverse strains of mice was highly conserved, although individual mice varied considerably in the absolute number of B cells committed to the production of antibodies of a given specificity.