Lourenço Olga, Fonseca Ana Mafalda, Taborda-Barata Luis
CICS - UBI, Health Sciences Research Centre, University of Beira Interior , Covilhã , Portugal.
CICS - UBI, Health Sciences Research Centre, University of Beira Interior, Covilhã, Portugal; Department of Allergy and Clinical Immunology, Cova da Beira Hospital Centre, Covilhã, Portugal.
Front Immunol. 2016 Dec 23;7:638. doi: 10.3389/fimmu.2016.00638. eCollection 2016.
Asthma affects approximately 300 million people worldwide and is the most common chronic lung disease, which usually is associated with bronchial inflammation. Most research has focused upon the role of CD4+ T cells, and relatively few studies have addressed the phenotypic and functional roles of CD8+ T cell types and subtypes. Human NK-like CD8+ T cells may involve cells that have been described as CD8+CD28-, CD8+CD28-CD57+, CD8+CD27-, or CD8+ effector memory (TEM) cells, among other. However, most of the data that are available regarding these various cell types were obtained in murine models did not thoroughly characterize these cells with phenotypically or functionally or did not involve asthma-related settings. Nevertheless, one may conceptualize three principal roles for human NK-like CD8+ T cells in asthma: disease-promoting, regulatory, and/or tissue repair. Although evidence for some of these roles is scarce, it is possible to extrapolate some data from overlapping or related CD8+ T cell phenotypes, with caution. Clearly, further research is warranted, namely in terms of thorough functional and phenotypic characterization of human NK-like CD8+ T cells in human asthma of varying severity.
哮喘影响着全球约3亿人，是最常见的慢性肺部疾病，通常与支气管炎症相关。大多数研究集中在CD4+ T细胞的作用上，而针对CD8+ T细胞类型和亚群的表型及功能作用的研究相对较少。人类自然杀伤样CD8+ T细胞可能包括已被描述为CD8+CD28-、CD8+CD28-CD57+、CD8+CD27-或CD8+效应记忆（TEM）细胞等的细胞。然而，关于这些不同细胞类型的现有数据大多是在小鼠模型中获得的，没有从表型或功能上对这些细胞进行全面表征，或者没有涉及哮喘相关的情况。尽管如此，人们可以设想人类自然杀伤样CD8+ T细胞在哮喘中可能发挥的三个主要作用：促进疾病、调节和/或组织修复。虽然支持其中一些作用的证据很少，但谨慎地从重叠或相关的CD8+ T细胞表型中推断一些数据是可能的。显然，有必要进行进一步的研究，特别是对不同严重程度的人类哮喘中人类自然杀伤样CD8+ T细胞进行全面的功能和表型表征。
