A paper published online this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) highlights a collaboration between two Sanford-Burnham scientists, one an immunologist in the Infectious and Inflammatory Disease Center and the other a cell communication expert in the Cancer Center.

Dr. Robert Rickert studies B cells, a type of white blood cell in the immune system that produces antibodies to neutralize foreign particles. Because they move around the body, immune cells are oddities compared to other types of cells.

“Other scientists worry about a process called anoikis, in which wandering cells are programmed to self-destruct,” Dr. Rickert explains. “In contrast, only some populations of B cells stay put, like those found in the marginal zone of the spleen.”

So it caught his attention one day when he heard his colleague Dr. Elena Pasquale talk about her work on integrins, a family of proteins located on the surface of many cell types. Integrins carry signals back and forth between the inside and outside of cells, allowing cells to adhere to their surroundings or other cells. Dr. Rickert knew that integrin signaling is required for B cells to remain in a particular region of the spleen, known as the marginal zone, but not why.

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