Monoclonal B-cell lymphocytosis (MBL) with normal lymphocyte counts is associated with decreased numbers of normal circulating B-cell subsets. Little is known about the distribution of normal lymphoid cells and their subsets in the peripheral blood (PB) of subjects with monoclonal Bcell lymphocytosis (MBL). In our study, we compared the absolute number of PB lymphoid cells and their subpopulations in 95 MBL cases with normal lymphocyte counts vs. 617 age-/sex-matched non-MBL healthy subjects (controls), using highly sensitive flow cytometry. MBL cases showed significantly reduced numbers of normal circulating B-cells, at the expense of immature and naïve B-cells; in addition, CD41CD81 double-positive T-cells and CD81 T-cells were significantly lower and higher vs. controls, respectively. Moreover, most normal B-cell subsets were significantly decreased in PB at 1% MBL-counts, vs. ''low-count'' MBL cases, and lower amounts of immature/naïve B-cells were detected in biclonal (particularly in cases with coexisting CLL-like-and non-CLL-like B-cell clones) vs. monoclonal MBL subjects. In summary, our results show imbalanced (reduced) absolute numbers of recently produced normal circulating B-cells (e.g., immature and naïve B-cells) in MBL, which becomes more pronounced as the MBL cell count increases.The revised National Cancer Institute Working Group/International Workshop on chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) recognized monoclonal B-cell lymphocytosis (MBL) as a new diagnostic category defined by presence of <5 3 10 9 /L circulating monoclonal B-cells -most frequently resembling the phenotype and genetic features of CLL cells-in otherwise healthy subjects [1][2][3][4]. It has been suggested that the clinical significance of MBL is different depending on whether a given MBL is identified during the diagnostic evaluation of a lymphocytosis or through screening procedures of subjects with normal lymphocyte counts [3]; accordingly, the probability of MBL to progress to CLL increases among cases showing higher B-cell numbers [3,[5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13]. Other factors predicting transformation of MBL into CLL have not been clarified [5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13]; the evidences of NK-and T-cell alterations in CLL, which have been suggested to contribute to the survival of CLL B-cells and progression of the disease [13,14], prompted us to evaluate the distribution of different compartments of circulating normal lymphoid cells in MBL cases, to gain insight into its potential impact on MBL biology. With this purpose, we analyzed the distribution of non-clonal lymphoid cells (B-, T-, and NK-cells) and their subsets in PB specimens from MBL cases with normal lymphocyte counts, and their relationship with MBL-cell counts.Overall, MBL showed significantly decreased normal B-lymphocytes counts vs. controls, at the expense of lower numbers of both PB immature and naïve B-lymphocytes (Fig. 1A). As the distribution of B-cell subsets markedly varies with age [15,16], further comparison of the number of B-cells and their subp...