Fig. 1

Identification of novel and previously annotated long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs). a Schematic illustration of terminal differentiation of B cells from naive to plasma cells. b Workflow used to define and identify the novel and annotated lncRNAs expressed during the humoral immune response. c Coding potential, distribution of transcript lengths, distribution of number of exons per transcript, and expression levels for protein-coding genes (messenger RNA (mRNA)—red), previously annotated lncRNAs (annotated lncRNA—green), and novel lncRNAs (blue). d Number of lncRNAs and coding genes expressed. e, f Percentage of transcribed genome during the humoral immune response. f Box plots showing the percentage of coding genes or lncRNAs reads in Ig locus with respect to all coding genes or lncRNAs. Box plots show the median as center, first and third quartiles as the box hinges, and whiskers extend to the smallest and largest value no further than the 1.5× interquartile range (IQR) away from the hinges. NB: naive B cells; CB: centroblasts; CC: centrocytes; MEM: memory B cells; TPC: tonsillar plasma cells; BMPC: plasma cells from bone marrow of healthy donors