ImmunoTargets and Therapy (Jun 2017)

CD8+ memory T-cell inflation renders compromised CD4+ T-cell-dependent CD8+ T-cell immunity via naïve T-cell anergy

  • Xu A,
  • Freywald A,
  • Xie Y,
  • Li Z,
  • Xiang J

Journal volume & issue
Vol. Volume 6
pp. 39 – 49

Abstract

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Aizhang Xu,1,2 Andrew Freywald,3 Yufeng Xie,4 Zejun Li,5 Jim Xiang1,2 1Cancer Research Cluster, Saskatchewan Cancer Agency, 2Department of Oncology, 3Department of Pathology, University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, SK, Canada; 4Department of Oncology, First Affiliated Hospital, Soochow University, Suzhou, 5Shanghai Veterinary Research Institute, Shanghai, China Abstract: Whether inflation of CD8+ memory T (mT) cells, which is often derived from repeated prime-boost vaccinations or chronic viral infections in the elderly, would affect late CD8+ T-cell immunity is a long-standing paradox. We have previously established an animal model with mT-cell inflation by transferring ConA-stimulated monoclonal CD8+ T cells derived from Ova-specific T-cell-receptor transgenic OTI mice into irradiation-induced lymphopenic B6 mice. In this study, we also established another two animal models with mT-cell inflation by transferring, 1) ConA-stimulated monoclonal CD8+ T cells derived from lymphocytic choriomeningitis virus glycoprotein-specific T-cell-receptor transgenic P14 mice, and 2) ConA-stimulated polyclonal CD8+ T cells derived from B6.1 mice into B6 mice with irradiation-induced lymphopenia. We vaccinated these mice with recombinant Ova-expressing Listeria monocytogenes and Ova-pulsed dendritic cells, which stimulated CD4+ T cell-independent and CD4+ T-cell-dependent CD8+ T-cell responses, respectively, and assessed Ova-specific CD8+ T-cell responses by flow cytometry. We found that Ova-specific CD8+ T-cell responses derived from the latter but not the former vaccination were significantly reduced in mice with CD8+ mT-cell inflation compared to wild-type B6 mice. We determined that naïve CD8+ T cells purified from splenocytes of mice with mT-cell inflation had defects in cell proliferation upon stimulation in vitro and in vivo and upregulated T-cell anergy-associated Itch and GRAIL molecules. Taken together, our data reveal that CD8+ mT-cell inflation renders compromised CD4+ T-cell-dependent CD8+ T-cell immunity via naïve T-cell anergy, and thus show promise for the design of efficient vaccines for elderly patients with CD8+ mT-cell inflation. Keywords: lymphopenia, memory T-cell inflation, defective immunity, T-cell proliferation, T-cell anergy

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