Journal article

Granzyme K Expressing Cytotoxic T Lymphocytes Protects Against Influenza Virus in Granzyme AB(-/-) Mice

Misty R Jenkins, Joseph A Trapani, Peter C Doherty, Stephen J Turner

VIRAL IMMUNOLOGY | MARY ANN LIEBERT, INC | Published : 2008

Abstract

Granzyme (grz) AB(-/-) H2(b) mice generate numerically normal cytotoxic T lymphocyte (CTL) responses to the prominent influenza A virus D(b) NP(366) and D(b) PA(224) epitopes and terminate the infectious process in the pneumonic lung with the same kinetics as the WT controls. Though grz B protein expression is fully compromised, there is only a partial effect on the level of CTL activity measured in a classical, short-term (51)Cr release assay. Single-cell polymerase chain reaction (PCR) analysis of both highly activated effector and "resting" memory CD8(+) T cells from influenza A virus-infected grzAB(-/-) mice showed a high prevalence of grzK mRNA(+) expression in tetramer (tet)(+) CTLs as..

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Funding Acknowledgements

We thank Dr. Nigel Waterhouse for critical review and discussion and Ken Field for cell sorting. This work was supported by an Australian Postgraduate Scholarship (M. R. J.), a National Health and Medical Research Council Burnet Award (P. C. D), a Victorian Government Science, Technology and Innovation grant (P. C. D), NHMRC program grant and fellowship (J. A. T.), a Pfizer Senior Research Fellowship (S. J. T.), and a Melbourne University Early Career Researcher grant (S. J. T).