Department of Microbiology and Immunology, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN 55455.
Center for Immunology, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN 55455.
J Immunol. 2019 Aug 15;203(4):936-945. doi: 10.4049/jimmunol.1900093. Epub 2019 Jun 24.
Resident memory T cells (T) in the lung are vital for heterologous protection against influenza A virus (IAV). Environmental factors are necessary to establish lung T; however, the role of T cell-intrinsic factors like TCR signal strength have not been elucidated. In this study, we investigated the impact of TCR signal strength on the generation and maintenance of lung T after IAV infection. We inserted high- and low-affinity OT-I epitopes into IAV and infected mice after transfer of OT-I T cells. We uncovered a bias in T formation in the lung elicited by lower affinity TCR stimulation. TCR affinity did not impact the overall phenotype or long-term maintenance of lung T Overall, these findings demonstrate that T formation is negatively correlated with increased TCR signal strength. Lower affinity cells may have an advantage in forming T to ensure diversity in the Ag-specific repertoire in tissues.
肺部的驻留记忆 T 细胞（T）对于异源保护流感 A 病毒（IAV）至关重要。环境因素对于建立肺部 T 细胞是必需的；然而，T 细胞内在因素（如 TCR 信号强度）的作用尚未阐明。在这项研究中，我们研究了 TCR 信号强度对 IAV 感染后肺部 T 细胞的产生和维持的影响。我们将高亲和性和低亲和性 OT-I 表位插入 IAV 中，并在 OT-I T 细胞转移后感染小鼠。我们发现，较低亲和性 TCR 刺激引起的 T 细胞形成存在偏向。TCR 亲和力并不影响肺 T 细胞的总体表型或长期维持。总的来说，这些发现表明 T 细胞的形成与 TCR 信号强度的增加呈负相关。较低亲和力的细胞可能在形成 T 细胞方面具有优势，以确保组织中抗原特异性库的多样性。
