Journal
PLOS PATHOGENS
Volume 11, Issue 1, Pages -Publisher
PUBLIC LIBRARY SCIENCE
DOI: 10.1371/journal.ppat.1004622
Keywords
-
Categories
Funding
- Wenner-Gren Foundations
- Jeansson Foundations
- Ake Wiberg Foundation [940220814]
- Siri Lindstrom Foundation
- Magnus Bergvall Foundation
- Swedish Society of Medicine [SLS-246811, SLS-324381]
- Stockholm County Council
- Karolinska Institutet
- Swedish Research Council [VR K2011-56X-10907-18-6, VR 521-2013-8623]
- Swedish Foundation for Strategic Research [SSF SB12-0003]
Ask authors/readers for more resources
Tick-borne encephalitis virus (TBEV) is transferred to humans by ticks. The virus causes tick-borne encephalitis (TBE) with symptoms such as meningitis and meningoencephalitis. About one third of the patients suffer from long-lasting sequelae after clearance of the infection. Studies of the immune response during TBEV-infection are essential to the understanding of host responses to TBEV-infection and for the development of therapeutics. Here, we studied in detail the primary CD8 T cell response to TBEV in patients with acute TBE. Peripheral blood CD8 T cells mounted a considerable response to TBEV-infection as assessed by Ki67 and CD38 co-expression. These activated cells showed a CD45RA-CCR7-CD127-phenotype at day 7 after hospitalization, phenotypically defining them as effector cells. An immunodominant HLA-A2-restricted TBEV epitope was identified and utilized to study the characteristics and temporal dynamics of the antigen-specific response. The functional profile of TBEV-specific CD8 T cells was dominated by variants of monofunctional cells as the effector response matured. Antigen-specific CD8 T cells predominantly displayed a distinct Eomes+Ki67+T-bet+ effector phenotype at the peak of the response, which transitioned to an Eomes-Ki67-T-bet+ phenotype as the infection resolved and memory was established. These transcription factors thus characterize and discriminate stages of the antigen-specific T cell response during acute TBEV-infection. Altogether, CD8 T cells responded strongly to acute TBEV infection and passed through an effector phase, prior to gradual differentiation into memory cells with distinct transcription factor expression- patterns throughout the different phases.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available