Essential requirement for polypyrimidine tract binding proteins 1 and 3 in the maturation and maintenance of mature B cells in mice

The maturation of immature B cells and the survival of mature B cells is stringently controlled to maintain a diverse repertoire of antibody specificities while avoiding self‐reactivity. At the molecular level this is regulated by signaling from membrane Ig and the BAFF‐receptor that sustain a pro‐survival program of gene expression. Whether and how posttranscriptional mechanisms contribute to B cell maturation and survival remains poorly understood. Here, we show that the polypyrimidine tract binding proteins (PTBP) PTBP1 and PTBP3 bind to a large and overlapping set of transcripts in B cells. Both PTBP1 and PTBP3 bind to introns and exons where they are predicted to regulate alternative splicing. Moreover, they also show high‐density of binding to 3’ untranslated regions suggesting they influence the transcriptome in diverse ways. We show that PTBP1 and PTBP3 are required in B cells beyond the immature cell stage to sustain transitional B cells and the B1, marginal zone and follicular B cell lineages. Therefore, PTBP1 and PTBP3 promote the maturation of quiescent B cells by regulating gene expression at the posttranscriptional level.