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Use of Single Chain MHC Technology to Investigate Co-agonism in Human CD8+ T Cell Activation
Published on: February 28, 2019
Functional re-expression of CCR7 on CMV-specific CD8+ T cells upon antigenic stimulation
Ester M M van Leeuwen1, Jaap D van Buul, Ester B M Remmerswaal
1Department of Experimental Immunology, Avademic Medical Center, Meibergdreef 9, 1105 AZ Amsterdam, The Netherlands. e.m.vanleeuwen@amc.uva.nl
Abstract:
During latency circulating human cytomegalovirus (CMV)-specific CD8(+) T cells do not express the chemokine receptor CCR7. We here show that antigen-specific stimulation in vitro with the specific CMV-peptide in combination with CMV-antigen, IL-2 or IL-21 induced re-expression of CCR7 on CMV-specific CD8(+) T cells. Although IL-15 induced strong proliferation of peptide-pulsed CMV-specific CD8(+) T cells, these cells did not re-express CCR7. CMV-specific cells that re-expressed CCR7 also expressed CD62L and were able to react to specific chemokine stimulation with changes in the cytoskeleton. In addition, activated CMV-specific cells specifically migrated towards a chemokine gradient in a transwell assay, with and without an endothelial cell monolayer. We conclude that antigenic stimulation induced functional re-expression of CCR7 which suggests that the migratory properties of virus-primed T cells are flexible and depend on the presence or absence of antigen and cytokines.
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