Virtual memory T cells develop and mediate bystander protective immunity in an IL-15-dependent manner

Jason T. White, Eric W. Cross, Matthew A. Burchill, Thomas Danhorn, Martin D. McCarter, Hugo R. Rosen, Brian O’Connor and Ross M. Kedl ()
Additional contact information
Jason T. White: University of Colorado Denver at Anschutz Medical Campus, School of Medicine
Eric W. Cross: University of Colorado Denver at Anschutz Medical Campus, School of Medicine
Matthew A. Burchill: University of Colorado Denver at Anschutz Medical Campus, School of Medicine
Thomas Danhorn: National Jewish Health
Martin D. McCarter: University of Colorado Denver at Anschutz Medical Campus, School of Medicine
Hugo R. Rosen: University of Colorado Denver at Anschutz Medical Campus, School of Medicine
Brian O’Connor: National Jewish Health
Ross M. Kedl: University of Colorado Denver at Anschutz Medical Campus, School of Medicine

Nature Communications, 2016, vol. 7, issue 1, 1-13

Abstract: Abstract Virtual memory cells (VM) are an antigen-specific, memory phenotype CD8 T-cell subset found in lymphoreplete, unchallenged mice. Previous studies indicated that VM cells were the result of homeostatic proliferation (HP) resembling the proliferation observed in a lymphopenic environment. Here we demonstrate that HP is ongoing in lymphoreplete mice, the degree of which is dictated by the number of naive CD8 T cells with a sufficiently high affinity for self-antigen interacting with peripheral IL-15. VM cell transcriptional profiles suggest a capacity to mediate protective immunity via antigen non-specific bystander killing, a function we show is dependent on IL-15. Finally, we show a VM-like population of human cells that accumulate with age and traffic to the liver, displaying phenotypic and functional attributes consistent with the bystander protective functions of VM cells identified in the mouse. These data identify developmental and functional attributes of VM cells, including their likely role in protective immunity.

Date: 2016
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms11291 Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcom:v:7:y:2016:i:1:d:10.1038_ncomms11291

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/ncomms/

DOI: 10.1038/ncomms11291

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Communications is currently edited by Nathalie Le Bot, Enda Bergin and Fiona Gillespie

More articles in Nature Communications from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().