Anti-CD40 monoclonal antibodies or CD4+ T cell clones and IL-4 induce IgG4 and IgE switching in purified human B cells via different signaling pathways.

IL-4 induces IgE and IgG4 synthesis, but in addition to IL-4, a second signal provided by CD4+ T cells is required. Here we demonstrate that the signal provided by CD4+ T cells can be replaced by anti-CD40 mAb. Highly purified surface (sIgM+) human B cells cultured with soluble anti-CD40 mAb in the presence of IL-4 produced IgM, total IgG, IgG4, and relatively high levels of IgE, indicating that production of these isotypes represented H chain switching and was not the result of a selective outgrowth of isotype committed B cells. No IgA was produced in these cultures. However, the T cell signal was different from the signal provided by anti-CD40 mAb, because in contrast to CD4+ T cells, anti-CD40 mAb failed to induce germ-line epsilon transcripts. However, anti-CD40 mAb strongly enhanced germ-line epsilon mRNA expression induced by IL-4. In addition, IFN-gamma, IFN-alpha, and anti-CD23 mAb, which block IL-4-induced IgE production by PBMC, or B cells cocultured with CD4+ T cell clones, failed to inhibit IgG4 and IgE synthesis induced by anti-CD40 mAb. Finally, anti-CD40 mAb and CD4+ T cell clones had strong synergistic effects on IgG4 and IgE synthesis. These results indicate that different B cell activation pathways can result in IgG4 and IgE switching in the presence of IL-4.