GC B cells accumulate whereas memory B cell compartment is reduced in HIV+ spleens.

<p>(A) Using flow cytometry, B cell maturation was assessed according to the expression of CD38 and IgD markers by CD19⁺ cells (34). The gating strategy is presented in <b><a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0140978#pone.0140978.s001" target="_blank">S1 Fig</a></b>. In HIV chronically infected patients, B cell maturation is biased towards GC B cells and PC subsets as compared to HIV^- donors and ITP⁺ patients. (B) The transitional B cell population was identified as CD19⁺CD38⁺⁺IgD⁺CD27^-IgM⁺ and plasma cells as CD19⁺CD38⁺⁺IgD^-. In the box-and-whiskers plot, box size represents the limits of data for the second and third quartiles, with medians shown as bars. Whiskers define the minimum and maximum of the data presented. HIV^-ITP^- n = 8, HIV^-ITP⁺ n = 3, HIV⁺ITP^- n = 5 and HIV⁺ITP⁺ n = 8. Statistics were obtained using the non parametric Mann-Whitney test *p<0.05, **p<0.005, ***p<0.001.