MRC National Institute for Medical Research, Mill Hill, London, UK.
Eur J Immunol. 2010 Aug;40(8):2139-42. doi: 10.1002/eji.201040731.
Studies of chronic viral infections have highlighted the phenotypic and functional heterogeneity of antigen-specific T cells and suggested that polyfunctional T cells that secrete multiple cytokines and are able to proliferate on encounter with antigen are more likely than single cytokine secretors to represent correlates of protective immunity. These findings have prompted the evaluation of such T-cell responses in chronic bacterial infections, such as tuberculosis (TB). A number of studies in humans suggested that polyfunctional T cells may indeed be involved in mediating protection in TB; however, studies that question these findings are also emerging, including a study published in this issue of the European Journal of Immunology. These differing findings highlight the difficulties of studying human immunity to TB and the need for polyfunctional T cells to be evaluated in longitudinal studies as opposed to case-control analyses.
对慢性病毒感染的研究强调了抗原特异性 T 细胞的表型和功能异质性，并表明能够分泌多种细胞因子并在遇到抗原时增殖的多功能 T 细胞比单一细胞因子分泌者更有可能代表保护性免疫的相关因素。这些发现促使人们评估慢性细菌感染（如结核病，TB）中的这种 T 细胞反应。许多人类研究表明，多功能 T 细胞可能确实参与了 TB 的保护；然而，也出现了一些质疑这些发现的研究，包括本期《欧洲免疫学杂志》上发表的一项研究。这些不同的发现凸显了研究人类对 TB 的免疫的困难，以及需要在纵向研究中评估多功能 T 细胞，而不是病例对照分析。
