Plasma Cell Heterogeneity in Humoral Responses and Malignancies

Dear Colleagues,

Plasma cells stand as an endpoint of humoral immune responses, but differentiate through various trajectories, either extrafollicular or involving antigen-driven selection within germinal centers for then yielding long-lived plasma cells. While sharing major phenotypic aspects, plasma cells are thus imprinted by multiple B-cell intrinsic or extrinsic factors, from immunoglobulin repertoire, class-switching, somatic hypermutation to past or persistent interactions with the antigen and the immune microenvironment. The sum of these effects sets plasma cell fate, homing, secretory or regulatory functions, and crucially impacts the quality and duration of immune responses. The highly active transcription, translation and metabolism of plasmablasts and plasma cells, together with their granted access to a potentially long-lived status, also strongly expose these cells to autonomous proliferation and malignant transformation. The diversity of plasma cell dyscrasias is further increased by the genomic instability of transformed plasma cells and is thus of major importance for their prognosis and treatment.

Although huge progresses have been made in the understanding of plasma cell diversity, many gaps remain to be filled, both regarding the various types of plasma cells generated along normal immune responses and their malignant counterparts.

We are pleased to invite you to contribute to this Special Issue of Cancers devoted to plasma cell diversity, with the aim of including experimental studies or theoretical works about the various pathways mobilized in normal differentiating plasmablasts and plasma cells, eventually hijacked in plasma cell malignancies. This is aligned with the aims and scope of Cancers, which is devoted to the publication of well-designed studies devoted to cancers.

This Special Issue aims to include studies in human or mouse models, and both original research articles and reviews are welcome. Research areas may include (but are not limited to) the following: cell fate decisions, initial stimulation of plasmablasts, plasma cell repertoire, plasma cell regulatory function, dependence on external stimulation by the antigen and the microenvironment, plasma cell homing, regulation of apoptosis and of the unfolded protein response in plasma cells, plasma cell metabolism, genomic instability of transformed plasma cells, impact of oncogenes and translocations, therapeutic implications, etc.

We look forward to receiving your contributions.

Prof. Dr. Michel Cogné
Dr. Jérôme Moreaux
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Cancers is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2900 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• plasmablast
• plasma cell
• cell fate
• monoclonal gammopathy
• myeloma