Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• van de Berg, Pablo J. E. J
• Griffiths, Stephen J
• Yong, Si-La
• Macaulay, Richard
• Bemelman, Frederike J
• Jackson, Sarah
• Henson, Sian M
• ten Berge, Ineke J. M
• Akbar, Arne N
• van Lier, Rene A. W

Titel

Cytomegalovirus Infection Reduces Telomere Length of the Circulating T Cell Pool

Ist Teil von

• The Journal of immunology (1950), 2010-04, Vol.184 (7), p.3417-3423

Ort / Verlag

United States: Am Assoc Immnol

Erscheinungsjahr

2010

Quelle

EZB-FREE-00999 freely available EZB journals

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• Short telomeres of circulating leukocytes are a risk factor for age-related diseases, such as atherosclerosis, but the exact mechanisms generating variations in telomere length are unknown. We hypothesized that induction of differentiated T cells during chronic CMV infection would affect T cell telomere length. To test this, we measured the amount of differentiated T cells and telomere length of lymphocytes during primary CMV infection as well as CMV-seropositive and -seronegative healthy individuals. After primary CMV infection, we observed an increase in highly differentiated cells that coincided with a steep drop in telomere length. Moreover, we found in a cohort of 159 healthy individuals that telomere shortening was more rapid in CMV-seropositive individuals and correlated with the amount of differentiated T cells in both CD4(+) T cells and CD8(+) T cells. Finally, we found that telomere length measured in blood leukocytes is correlated with lymphocyte telomere length. Thus, CMV infection induces a strong decrease in T cell telomere length, which can be explained by changes in the composition of the circulating lymphocyte pool.