Journal article

Heightened self-reactivity associated with selective survival, but not expansion, of naïve virus-specific CD8 T cells in aged mice

KM Quinn, SG Zaloumis, T Cukalac, WT Kan, XYX Sng, M Mirams, KA Watson, JM McCaw, PC Doherty, PG Thomas, A Handel, NL La Gruta

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America | Published : 2016

Abstract

In advanced age, decreased CD8+ cytotoxic T-lymphocyte (CTL) responses to novel pathogens and cancer is paralleled by a decline in the number and function of naïve CTL precursors (CTLp). Although the age-related fall in CD8+ T-cell numbers is well established, neither the underlying mechanisms nor the extent of variation for different epitope specificities have been defined. Furthermore, naïve CD8+ T cells expressing high levels of CD44 accumulate with age, but it is unknown whether this accumulation reflects their preferential survival or an age-dependent driver of CD8+ T-cell proliferation. Here, we track the number and phenotype of four influenza A virus (IAV)-specific CTLp populations in..

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Grants

Awarded by National Institutes of Health


Funding Acknowledgements

We thank Stephen J. Turner for critical reading of the manuscript. This work was supported by National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) Program Grant AI1071916 (to P. C. D. and N. L. L. G.) and Project Grant AI1046333 (to N. L. L. G.), National Institutes of Health Grants U19AI117891 (to P. G. T. and A. H.) and AI107625 (to P. G. T.), a Sylvia and Charles Viertel Senior Medical Research Fellowship (to N. L. L. G.), an Australian Research Council Future Fellowship (to J. M. M.), and NHMRC Biomedical Postgraduate Scholarship AI520643 (to T. C.). S. G. Z. was supported under NHMRC Centre of Research Excellence Grant AI1035261, awarded to the Victorian Centre for Biostatistics (ViCBiostat).