{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"institution":[{"name":"bioRxiv"}],"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,9,19]],"date-time":"2026-09-19T22:05:11Z","timestamp":1789855511415,"version":"4.0.1"},"posted":{"date-parts":[[2026,9,16]]},"group-title":"Immunology","reference-count":69,"publisher":"openRxiv","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2026,9,16]],"date-time":"2026-09-16T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1789516800000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"http:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":[],"accepted":{"date-parts":[[2026,9,16]]},"abstract":"<jats:title>Abstract<\/jats:title>\n                <jats:p>\n                  Germinal center (GC) B cells undergo extensive apoptosis, but how this process shapes evolving GC populations remains unclear. Using mice lacking intrinsic apoptotic effectors BAK and BAX in B cells, we found that mitochondrial apoptosis was dispensable for affinity maturation but critical for controlling GC size and cellular composition, showing that GC population dynamics and affinity maturation can be uncoupled. BAK\/BAX-deficient mice mounted enlarged and prolonged GC responses, largely due to the accumulation of non-proliferating Ki-67\n                  <jats:sup>lo<\/jats:sup>\n                  CD71\n                  <jats:sup>lo<\/jats:sup>\n                  dark zone (DZ) B cells. CD71\n                  <jats:sup>hi<\/jats:sup>\n                  and CD71\n                  <jats:sup>lo<\/jats:sup>\n                  DZ cells exhibited similar B-cell receptor (BCR) avidity, retained potential for proliferation and plasmacytic differentiation, and shared clonal lineages, indicating recurrent emergence of non-proliferating DZ populations. A subset also carried Somatic-hypermutation-derived defects that abolished antibody expression despite apparently productive V(D)J sequences; reversion of a single amino acid substitution often restored expression. Mitochondrial apoptosis thus enforces cellular quality control in the GC by limiting the persistence of non-proliferating and expression-defective states while remaining dispensable for affinity maturation.\n                <\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.64898\/2026.09.10.750694","type":"posted-content","created":{"date-parts":[[2026,9,16]],"date-time":"2026-09-16T13:35:13Z","timestamp":1789565713000},"source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":0,"title":["Apoptotic Quality Control of Cellular Competence Limits Cryptic Germinal Center B Cell States"],"prefix":"10.64898","author":[{"given":"Chen-Hao","family":"Yeh","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Integrative Immunobiology, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina 27705, USA"},{"name":"Department of Duke Human Vaccine Institute, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina 27705, 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