High throughput cellular screens to interrogate the human T and B cell repertoires

There is growing consensus for an urgent need to develop efficient methods to analyze the human T and B cell response in order to understand its regulation, to unravel host-pathogen interactions and to design better vaccines. In this review we will consider different methods that have been developed to analyze human T and B cells and focus in particular on those based on high-throughput cell culture, such as memory B cell immortalization, plasma cell cultures and libraries of naïve or memory T cells. These culture-based methods can be used to interrogate with high efficiency the immune repertoires in order to characterize the frequency, function and specificity of naïve or memory T cells and to isolate potent and broadly neutralizing monoclonal antibodies.

► The analysis of the specificity and class of the immune response provides information relevant for vaccine design.
► High throughput cell culture methods can be used to interrogate T and B cell memory repertoires.
► Human memory B cells and plasma cells represent a valuable source of potent broadly neutralizing antibodies.