Abstract
The potential of memory T cells to provide protection against reinfection is beyond question. Yet, it remains debated whether long-term T cell memory is due to long-lived memory cells. There is ample evidence that blood-derived memory phenotype CD8 + T cells maintain themselves through cell division, rather than through longevity of individual cells. It has recently been proposed, however, that there may be heterogeneity in the lifespans of memory T cells, depending on factors such as exposure to cognate Ag. CMV infection induces not only conventional, contracting T cell responses, but also inflationary CD8 + T cell responses, which are maintained at unusually high numbers, and are even thought to continue to expand over time. It has been proposed that such inflating T cell responses result from the accumulation of relatively long-lived CMV-specific memory CD8 + T cells. Using in vivo deuterium labeling and mathematical modeling, we found that the average production rates and expected lifespans of mouse CMV-specific CD8 + T cells are very similar to those of bulk memory-phenotype CD8 + T cells. Even CMV-specific inflationary CD8 + T cell responses that differ 3-fold in size were found to turn over at similar rates.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 799-806 |
Number of pages | 9 |
Journal | Journal of Immunology |
Volume | 208 |
Issue number | 4 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 15 Feb 2022 |
Bibliographical note
Copyright © 2022 by The American Association of Immunologists, Inc.Keywords
- Algorithms
- Animals
- Biomarkers
- CD8-Positive T-Lymphocytes/immunology
- Cytomegalovirus Infections/immunology
- Epitopes, T-Lymphocyte/immunology
- Female
- Host-Pathogen Interactions/immunology
- Immunologic Memory
- Immunophenotyping
- Memory T Cells/immunology
- Mice
- Models, Theoretical
- Muromegalovirus/immunology
- T-Lymphocyte Subsets/immunology