Journal
JOURNAL OF IMMUNOLOGY
Volume 180, Issue 11, Pages 7265-7275Publisher
AMER ASSOC IMMUNOLOGISTS
DOI: 10.4049/jimmunol.180.11.7265
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Funding
- NCI NIH HHS [CA038355] Funding Source: Medline
- NIAID NIH HHS [AI045809, AI046710] Funding Source: Medline
- NIA NIH HHS [AG020186, AG001743] Funding Source: Medline
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IL-7, a member of the common gamma-chain family of cytokines, is essential for B and T lymphocyte development and homeostasis of mature T cell subsets. Thus, naive and memory T cells are both dependent on IL-7 for survival and homeostatic proliferation under lymphopenic conditions. In line with prior findings with IL-2, we show in this study that the biological activity of IL-7 in vivo is greatly increased by association with anti-IL-7 mAb. Under in vivo conditions, IL-7/mAb complexes displayed 50- to 100-fold higher activity than free IL-7 and induced massive expansion of pre-B cells. IL-7/mAb complexes also increased thymopoiesis in normal mice and restored thymopoeisis in IL-7-deficient mice. For mature T cells, IL-7/mAb complexes induced marked homeostatic proliferation of both naive and memory CD4(+) and CD8(+) cell subsets even under normal T cell-replete conditions. Finally, IL-7/mAb complexes were able to enhance the magnitude of the primary response of Ag-specific naive CD8(+) cells. The strong stimulatory activity of IL-7/mAb complexes could be useful for treatment of immunodeficiency and cancer.
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