AI Article Synopsis
- During chronic infections, CD8(+) T cells become exhausted, showing increased PD-1 expression and reduced cytokine production.
- Researchers discovered that these exhausted T cells could retain memory-like properties and, when transferred to naive mice, were able to proliferate and effectively control a viral infection.
- The study suggests that during persistent infections, T cells undergo a stable differentiation that helps manage viral replication while minimizing damage to the immune system.
Article Abstract
During chronic infection, pathogen-specific CD8(+) T cells upregulate expression of molecules such as the inhibitory surface receptor PD-1, have diminished cytokine production and are thought to undergo terminal differentiation into exhausted cells. Here we found that T cells with memory-like properties were generated during chronic infection. After transfer into naive mice, these cells robustly proliferated and controlled a viral infection. The reexpanded T cell populations continued to have the exhausted phenotype they acquired during the chronic infection. Thus, the cells underwent a form of differentiation that was stably transmitted to daughter cells. We therefore propose that during persistent infection, effector T cells stably differentiate into a state that is optimized to limit viral replication without causing overwhelming immunological pathology.
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| http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/ni.2606 | DOI Listing |
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