Plasma cells (PC) are key to protective immunity because they secrete antibodies. Surviving for periods ranging from days to decades in mammals, PC possess varying survival times that cannot be entirely stochastic or extrinsically set, as presumed half‐lives vary with antigenic specificity. Here, we review the signals that impart survival potential to PC. These include signals provided during formation, and signals experienced once generated and embedded in the so‐called long‐lived niche. These signals all feed into survival by maintaining PC expression of MCL1, potentially synergistically with influences of other BCL2 family members. Herein, we propose that each formed PC has a capacity to respond to extrinsic cues that sets an upper maximum to its lifespan, but survival is also affected by variable availability of signals provided in BM survival niches. PC survival thus becomes a function of immunogen characteristics and niche anatomy, determined by the weighted survival benefit ascribed to each involved factor. Most factors, such as supporting cell types and secreted proteins, are predicted to influence survival times varying temporally by orders of magnitude, rather than absolute PC abundances measured at a single time, which may account for the variation in PC lifespan evident in the literature.

中文翻译：

---

浆细胞存活的内在和外在调节因子如何相互作用以获得持久的体液免疫。

浆细胞 (PC) 是保护性免疫的关键，因为它们会分泌抗体。在哺乳动物中存活数天到数十年不等，PC 具有不同的存活时间，不能完全随机或外在设定，因为假定的半衰期随抗原特异性而异。在这里，我们回顾了赋予 PC 生存潜力的信号。这些包括在形成过程中提供的信号，以及一旦产生并嵌入所谓的长生境中所经历的信号。这些信号都通过维持 MCL1 的 PC 表达来促进生存，可能与其他 BCL2 家族成员的影响产生协同作用。在此，我们建议每个形成的 PC 都有能力响应外在线索，为其寿命设定上限，但生存也受到 BM 生存生态位中提供的信号的可变可用性的影响。因此，PC 存活成为免疫原特征和生态位解剖结构的函数，由归因于每个相关因素的加权存活获益决定。大多数因素，例如支持细胞类型和分泌的蛋白质，预计会影响存活时间按数量级在时间上变化，而不是单次测量的绝对 PC 丰度，这可能解释了文献中明显的 PC 寿命变化。