Simian immunodeficiency virus confounds T follicular helper T cells and the germinal centre

Yamamoto et al. have studied T follicular helper (TFH) and germinal centre (GC) responses after infection of rhesus macaques (RM) infected with simian immunodeficiency virus (SIV). In this study the authors examined the behaviour of TFH, reproducing infection-associated TFH accumulation and their association with the quality of antibody responses against cross-clade viral epitopes. The authors correlate TFH IL4 and CD154 expression with superior antibody responses. Accumulation of TFH was accompanied by aberrant expression of non-TFH transcriptional regulators such as BLIMP1 in TFH, suggesting viral induced abnormalities may affect TFH function.