Human innate B cells: a link between host defense and autoimmunity?

B cells play a variety of immunoregulatory roles through their antigen-presentation ability and through cytokine and chemokine production. Innate immune activation of B cells may play a beneficial role through the generation of natural cross-reactive antibodies, by maintaining B cell memory and by exercising immunomodulatory functions that may provide protection against autoimmunity. In this article, we review human B cell populations and their functional properties, with a particular focus on a population of inherently autoreactive B cells, which seem to play an important physiological role in innate immunity, but which, if selected into adaptive immune responses, appear to become pathogenic agents in systemic lupus erythematosus.