| First Author | Salti SM | Year | 2011 |
| Journal | J Immunol | Volume | 187 |
| Issue | 12 | Pages | 6301-9 |
| PubMed ID | 22084442 | Mgi Jnum | J:180386 |
| Mgi Id | MGI:5306189 | Doi | 10.4049/jimmunol.1100891 |
| Citation | Salti SM, et al. (2011) Granzyme B regulates antiviral CD8+ T cell responses. J Immunol 187(12):6301-9 |
| abstractText | CTLs and NK cells use the perforin/granzyme cytotoxic pathway to kill virally infected cells and tumors. Human regulatory T cells also express functional granzymes and perforin and can induce autologous target cell death in vitro. Perforin-deficient mice die of excessive immune responses after viral challenges, implicating a potential role for this pathway in immune regulation. To further investigate the role of granzyme B in immune regulation in response to viral infections, we characterized the immune response in wild-type, granzyme B-deficient, and perforin-deficient mice infected with Sendai virus. Interestingly, granzyme B-deficient mice, and to a lesser extent perforin-deficient mice, exhibited a significant increase in the number of Ag-specific CD8(+) T cells in the lungs and draining lymph nodes of virally infected animals. This increase was not the result of failure in viral clearance because viral titers in granzyme B-deficient mice were similar to wild-type mice and significantly less than perforin-deficient mice. Regulatory T cells from WT mice expressed high levels of granzyme B in response to infection, and depletion of regulatory T cells from these mice resulted in an increase in the number of Ag-specific CD8(+) T cells, similar to that observed in granzyme B-deficient mice. Furthermore, granzyme B-deficient regulatory T cells displayed defective suppression of CD8(+) T cell proliferation in vitro. Taken together, these results suggest a role for granzyme B in the regulatory T cell compartment in immune regulation to viral infections. |
