Use of human pharyngeal and palatine tonsils as a reservoir for the analysis of B-cell ontogeny in 10 paired samples

The mucosal immune system is critical to maintain immunological homoeostasis along the epithelial surface area, ranging from the oral and nasal cavities to the respiratory, intestinal and genito-urinary tracts.

The nasopharynx-associated lymphoid tissue (NALT) generates mucosal immunity through the inhalation of antigens in the respiratory tract. Accordingly, in the upper airways, most mucosal-associated lymphoid aggregates are found in the Waldeyer's ring, an anatomical term that describes the arrangement of lymphoid tissue in the pharynx and consists of the pharyngeal, tubal, palatine and lingual tonsils.1

Understanding the normal B-lymphoid homoeostasis is of great interest to gain further insight into human airway diseases (i.e allergic rhinitis), but noteworthy, detailed analyses of B-cell and plasma cell (PC) distribution within the different structures of the Waldeyer's ring are still lacking,2 and most observations arise from studies on mice, the gastrointestinal tract or both.3

Here, we used multiparameter flow cytometry to analyse distribution of B-cell derived populations in nasopharyngeal and palatine tonsils from patients with respiratory infections.

CITA DEL ARTÍCULO  Clin Otolaryngol. 2016 Oct;41(5):606-11. doi: 10.1111/coa.12540. Epub 2016 Feb 8