Expression of Tumor Necrosis Factor Receptor 2 Characterizes TLR9-Driven Formation of Interleukin-10-Producing B Cells

B cell-derived interleukin-10 (IL-10) production has been described as a hallmark for regulatory function in B lymphocytes. However, there is an ongoing debate on the origin of IL-10-secreting B cells and lack of specific surface markers has turned into an important obstacle for studying human B regulatory cells. In this study, we propose that tumor necrosis factor receptor 2 (TNFR2) expression can be used for enrichment of IL-10-secreting B cells. Our data confirm that IL-10 production can be induced by TLR9 stimulation with CpG ODN and that IL-10 secretion accompanies differentiation of peripheral blood B cells into plasma blasts. We further show that CpG ODN stimulation induces TNFR2 expression, which correlates with IL-10 secretion and terminal differentiation. Indeed, flow cytometric sorting of TNFR2(+) B cells revealed that TNFR2(+) and TNFR2(−) fractions correspond to IL-10(+) and IL-10(−) fractions, respectively. Furthermore, CpG-induced TNFR2(+) B cells were predominantly found in the IgM(+) CD27(+) B cell subset and spontaneously released immunoglobulin. Finally, our data corroborate the functional impact of TNFR2 by demonstrating that stimulation with a TNFR2 agonist significantly augments IL-10 and IL-6 production in B cells. Altogether, our data highlight a new role for TNFR2 in IL-10-secreting human B lymphocytes along with the potential to exploit this finding for sorting and isolation of this currently ill-defined B cell subset.