| First Author | Wilson JJ | Year | 2012 |
| Journal | J Immunol | Volume | 188 |
| Issue | 9 | Pages | 4340-8 |
| PubMed ID | 22447978 | Mgi Jnum | J:188466 |
| Mgi Id | MGI:5440578 | Doi | 10.4049/jimmunol.1103727 |
| Citation | Wilson JJ, et al. (2012) CD8 T cells recruited early in mouse polyomavirus infection undergo exhaustion. J Immunol 188(9):4340-8 |
| abstractText | Repetitive Ag encounter, coupled with dynamic changes in Ag density and inflammation, imparts phenotypic and functional heterogeneity to memory virus-specific CD8 T cells in persistently infected hosts. For herpesvirus infections, which cycle between latency and reactivation, recent studies demonstrate that virus-specific T cell memory is predominantly derived from naive precursors recruited during acute infection. Whether functional memory T cells to viruses that persist in a nonlatent, low-level infectious state (smoldering infection) originate from acute infection-recruited naive T cells is not known. Using mouse polyomavirus (MPyV) infection, we previously showed that virus-specific CD8 T cells in persistently infected mice are stably maintained and functionally competent; however, a sizeable fraction of these memory T cells are short-lived. Further, we found that naive anti-MPyV CD8 T cells are primed de novo during persistent infection and contribute to maintenance of the virus-specific CD8 T cell population and its phenotypic heterogeneity. Using a new MPyV-specific TCR-transgenic system, we now demonstrate that virus-specific CD8 T cells recruited during persistent infection possess multicytokine effector function, have strong replication potential, express a phenotype profile indicative of authentic memory capability, and are stably maintained. In contrast, CD8 T cells recruited early in MPyV infection express phenotypic and functional attributes of clonal exhaustion, including attrition from the memory pool. These findings indicate that naive virus-specific CD8 T cells recruited during persistent infection contribute to preservation of functional memory against a smoldering viral infection. |
