PBMCs were enriched for B cells by negative selection using a
pan B cell isolation kit according to the manufacturer’s instructions (Miltenyi Biotec, 130-101-638). The enriched B cells were incubated in FACS buffer (1 X Phosphate-buffered Saline (PBS), 2% calf serum, 1 mM EDTA) with the following anti-human antibodies:
anti-CD20-PECy7 (BD Biosciences, 335793),
anti-CD3-APC-eFluro 780 (Invitrogen, 47-0037-41),
anti-CD8-APC-eFluro 780 (Invitrogen, 47-0086-42),
anti-CD16-APC-eFluro 780 (Invitrogen, 47-0168-41),
anti-CD14-APC-eFluro 780 (Invitrogen, 47-0149-42), as well as
Zombie NIR (BioLegend, 423105), and fluorophore-labeled RBD and Ovalbumin for 30 minutes on ice
27 (link). Single CD3
−CD8
−CD16
−CD20
+Ova
−RBD-PE
+RBD-AF647
+ B cells were sorted into individual wells of a 96-well plates containing 4 μl of lysis buffer (0.5 X PBS, 10mM DTT, 3000 units/mL
RNasin Ribonuclease Inhibitors (Promega, N2615) per well using a
FACS Aria III (Becton Dickinson). The sorted cells were frozen on dry ice, and then stored at −80°C or immediately used for subsequent RNA reverse transcription. Although cells were not stained for IgG expression, they are memory B cells based on the fact that they are CD20+ (a marker absent in plasmablasts) and they express IgG (since antibodies were amplified from these cells using IgG-specific primers).
Robbiani D.F., Gaebler C., Muecksch F., Lorenzi J.C., Wang Z., Cho A., Agudelo M., Barnes C.O., Gazumyan A., Finkin S., Hagglof T., Oliveira T.Y., Viant C., Hurley A., Hoffmann H.H., Millard K.G., Kost R.G., Cipolla M., Gordon K., Bianchini F., Chen S.T., Ramos V., Patel R., Dizon J., Shimeliovich I., Mendoza P., Hartweger H., Nogueira L., Pack M., Horowitz J., Schmidt F., Weisblum Y., Michailidis E., Ashbrook A.W., Waltari E., Pak J.E., Huey-Tubman K.E., Koranda N., Hoffman P.R., West AP J.r., Rice C.M., Hatziioannou T., Bjorkman P.J., Bieniasz P.D., Caskey M, & Nussenzweig M.C. (2020). Convergent Antibody Responses to SARS-CoV-2 Infection in Convalescent Individuals. bioRxiv.