{
  "abstract": "Germinal centers (GCs) form as confined clusters of motile cells within individual lymphoid follicles. The role of confinement in GC B cell evolutionary events is unknown. Using mice with reduced GC confinement due to deficiency in Gα13-dependent G-protein-coupled receptor signaling, we observed GC-to-GC trafficking in confinement-defective lymph nodes (LNs). In multi-color clonal lineage tracing mice, de-confined GCs minimally diversified their color palettes with respect to one another. Spatial B cell receptor sequencing revealed greater clonal crossover between neighboring GCs in the setting of dispersal. The total GC B cell repertoire of LNs with inter-GC exchange also decreased in overall diversity due to increased skewing towards top clones. As an outcome, LNs with de-confined GCs more strongly favored clones responding to accessible epitopes while losing clones binding to other portions of antigen. Together, our findings suggest that confinement supports antibody breadth by moderating the spread of dominant clones and preserving unique trajectories in individual GC responses.",
  "abstract_shown": true,
  "affiliations": [
    "Howard Hughes Medical Institute and Department of Microbiology and Immunology, University of California San Francisco, San Francisco, CA 94143, USA",
    "Department of Immunology, University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, TX 77054, USA",
    "Department of Pathology, University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, CA 94143, USA.",
    "Department of Systems Immunology, Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research (HZI), Braunschweig, Germany.",
    "Department of Gastroenterology, University of California San Francisco, San Francisco, CA 94143, USA",
    "Université de Reims Champagne-Ardenne, INSERM, P3Cell UMR-S1250, SFR CAP-SANTE, Reims 51097, France",
    "Department of Biomedical Engineering, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX 78712 USA",
    "Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering, Harvard University, Boston, MA 02215, USA",
    "The Ragon Institute of Massachusetts General Hospital, The Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University, 400 Technology Square, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA",
    "Institute for Biochemistry, Biotechnology and Bioinformatics, Technische Universität Braunschweig, Braunschweig, Germany",
    "Lower Saxony Center for Artificial Intelligence and Causal Methods in Medicine (CAIMed), Hannover, Germany.",
    "Institute for Immunity, Transplantation, and Infection, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, CA 94304, USA"
  ],
  "article_type": "research article",
  "arxiv": null,
  "author_total": 19,
  "authors": [
    {
      "affs": [
        0
      ],
      "name": "Kevin Y. Chen"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        1,
        2
      ],
      "name": "Kenneth H. Hu"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        0
      ],
      "name": "Nikhita Kirthivasan"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        0
      ],
      "name": "Anshul Rao"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        3
      ],
      "name": "Niklas Schwan"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        0
      ],
      "name": "Jinping An"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        0
      ],
      "name": "Ying Xu"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        4
      ],
      "name": "Vincent Peng"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        5
      ],
      "name": "Mélia Magnen"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        6
      ],
      "name": "Sijin Huang"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        6
      ],
      "name": "Qian Yin"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        7
      ],
      "name": "Debraj Ghose"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        8
      ],
      "name": "Caroline Alexander"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        8
      ],
      "name": "Jack Smerczynski"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        3,
        9,
        10
      ],
      "name": "Michael Meyer-Hermann"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        2
      ],
      "name": "Matthew F. Krummel"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        11
      ],
      "name": "Vamsee Mallajosyula"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        8
      ],
      "name": "Daniel Lingwood"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        0
      ],
      "name": "Jason G. Cyster"
    }
  ],
  "bibtex": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/eny3ce9v54t6k.bib",
  "cited_by": 0,
  "doi": "10.1038/s41590-026-02698-x",
  "fulltext_url": "https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC13720956/",
  "id": "eny3ce9v54t6k",
  "issns": [
    "1529-2908",
    "1529-2916"
  ],
  "landing_url": "https://doi.org/10.1038/s41590-026-02698-x",
  "language": "en",
  "licence": "CC-BY-4.0",
  "licence_label": "CC BY 4.0",
  "licence_source": "article",
  "licence_url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/",
  "metadata_licence": null,
  "native_subjects": [
    [
      "heading",
      "Article"
    ],
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      "openalex",
      "2403|T-cell and B-cell Immunology"
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  "openalex": "W7223134593",
  "pdf_url": null,
  "pmcid": "PMC13720956",
  "pmid": "42907582",
  "published": "2026-10-21",
  "publisher": null,
  "ris": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/eny3ce9v54t6k.ris",
  "sources": [
    {
      "first_seen": "2026-11-03T12:21:44Z",
      "native_id": "PMC13720956",
      "source": "pmc",
      "url": "https://doi.org/10.1038/s41590-026-02698-x"
    }
  ],
  "subjects": [
    {
      "field": "biology",
      "origin": "openalex:2403|T-cell and B-cell Immunology",
      "subfield": "immunology"
    }
  ],
  "title": "Spatial confinement promotes germinal center diversity and tempers immunodominance",
  "title_text": "Spatial confinement promotes germinal center diversity and tempers immunodominance",
  "type": "peer-reviewed",
  "updated_at": "2026-11-03T12:21:44Z",
  "url": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/eny3ce9v54t6k",
  "venue": "Nature immunology",
  "versions": []
}