Department of Microbiology, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, United States of America.
Department of Immunology, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, United States of America.
PLoS One. 2020 Oct 22;15(10):e0240670. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0240670. eCollection 2020.
Memory antigen-specific CD4+ T cells against Chlamydia trachomatis are necessary for protection against secondary genital tract infection. While it is known that naïve antigen-specific CD4+ T cells can traffic to the genital tract in an antigen-specific manner, these T cells are not protective during primary infection. Here, we sought to compare the differences between memory and naïve antigen-specific CD4+ T cells in the same mouse following secondary infection using transgenic CD4+ T cells (NR1 T cells). Using RNA sequencing, we found that there were subtle but distinct differences between these two T cell populations. Naïve NR1 T cells significantly upregulated cell cycle genes and were more proliferative than memory NR1 T cells in the draining lymph node. In contrast, memory NR1 T cells were more activated than naïve NR1 T cells and were enriched in the genital tract. Together, our data provide insight into the differences between memory and naïve antigen-specific CD4+ T cells during C. trachomatis infection.
记忆性抗原特异性 CD4+ T 细胞对于预防沙眼衣原体（Chlamydia trachomatis）的二次生殖道感染是必要的。虽然已知幼稚抗原特异性 CD4+ T 细胞可以以抗原特异性的方式迁移到生殖道，但这些 T 细胞在初次感染期间没有保护作用。在这里，我们试图使用转基因 CD4+ T 细胞（NR1 T 细胞）比较二次感染后同一小鼠中记忆性和幼稚抗原特异性 CD4+ T 细胞之间的差异。通过 RNA 测序，我们发现这两种 T 细胞群体之间存在细微但明显的差异。幼稚的 NR1 T 细胞在引流淋巴结中显著上调细胞周期基因，比记忆性 NR1 T 细胞更具增殖性。相比之下，记忆性 NR1 T 细胞比幼稚的 NR1 T 细胞更活跃，并且在生殖道中富集。总之，我们的数据提供了在沙眼衣原体感染过程中记忆性和幼稚抗原特异性 CD4+ T 细胞之间差异的见解。
