AI Article Synopsis

  • The study explores differences in memory CD8 T cells between aged and young mice, revealing that aged mice form fewer memory CD8 T cells and exhibit altered differentiation.
  • Aged mice show increased illness and death rates when re-infected with a virus, highlighting the negative impact of aging on T cell immunity.
  • The research indicates that the reduced ability of memory CD8 T cells to proliferate in aged mice is intrinsic to the cells themselves and persists even when transferred to young mice, suggesting underlying age-related immunity issues.

Article Abstract

Although previous studies have demonstrated delayed viral clearance and blunted effector T cell responses in aged mice during infection, memory CD8 T cells and especially secondary responses have received less attention. In this study, we show that modest differences in the number of memory CD8 T cells formed in aged versus young animals were associated with altered memory CD8 T cell differentiation. Aged immune mice had increased morbidity and mortality upon secondary viral challenge, suggesting changes in T cell immunity. Indeed, virus-specific memory CD8 T cells from aged mice showed substantially reduced proliferative expansion upon secondary infection using multiple challenge models. In addition, this defect in recall capacity of aged memory CD8 T cells was cell-intrinsic and persisted upon adoptive transfer into young mice. Thus, the poor proliferative potential of memory T cells and altered memory CD8 T cell differentiation could underlie age-related defects in antiviral immunity.

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Source
http://dx.doi.org/10.4049/jimmunol.0902063DOI Listing

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