Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Thome, Joseph J C
• Bickham, Kara L
• Ohmura, Yoshiaki
• Kubota, Masaru
• Matsuoka, Nobuhide
• Gordon, Claire
• Granot, Tomer
• Griesemer, Adam
• Lerner, Harvey
• Kato, Tomoaki
• Farber, Donna L

Titel

Early-life compartmentalization of human T cell differentiation and regulatory function in mucosal and lymphoid tissues

Ist Teil von

• Nature medicine, 2016-01, Vol.22 (1), p.72-77

Ort / Verlag

United States: Nature Publishing Group

Erscheinungsjahr

2016

Link zum Volltext

Quelle

MEDLINE

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• It is unclear how the immune response in early life becomes appropriately stimulated to provide protection while also avoiding excessive activation as a result of diverse new antigens. T cells are integral to adaptive immunity; mouse studies indicate that tissue localization of T cell subsets is important for both protective immunity and immunoregulation. In humans, however, the early development and function of T cells in tissues remain unexplored. We present here an analysis of lymphoid and mucosal tissue T cells derived from pediatric organ donors in the first two years of life, as compared to adult organ donors, revealing early compartmentalization of T cell differentiation and regulation. Whereas adult tissues contain a predominance of memory T cells, in pediatric blood and tissues the main subset consists of naive recent thymic emigrants, with effector memory T cells (T(EM)) found only in the lungs and small intestine. Additionally, regulatory T (T(reg)) cells comprise a high proportion (30-40%) of CD4(+) T cells in pediatric tissues but are present at much lower frequencies (1-10%) in adult tissues. Pediatric tissue T(reg) cells suppress endogenous T cell activation, and early T cell functionality is confined to the mucosal sites that have the lowest T(reg):T(EM) cell ratios, which suggests control in situ of immune responses in early life.