Vaccine Research Center, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD, United States.
Centro de Investigación en Enfermedades Infecciosas, Instituto Nacional de Enfermedades Respiratorias, Mexico City, Mexico.
Front Immunol. 2021 Jun 9;12:683396. doi: 10.3389/fimmu.2021.683396. eCollection 2021.
CD4 T cells are key mediators of adaptive immune responses during infection and vaccination. Within secondary lymphoid organs, helper CD4 T cells, particularly those residing in germinal centers known as follicular helper T cells (Tfh), provide critical help to B-cells to promote their survival, isotype switching and selection of high affinity memory B-cells. On the other hand, the important role of Tfh cells for the maintenance of HIV reservoir is well documented. Thus, interrogating and better understanding the tissue specific micro-environment and immune subsets that contribute to optimal Tfh cell differentiation and function is important for designing successful prevention and cure strategies. Here, we describe the development and optimization of eight multispectral confocal microscopy immunofluorescence panels designed for in depth characterization and immune-profiling of relevant immune cells in formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded human lymphoid tissue samples. We provide a comprehensive library of antibodies to use for the characterization of CD4+ T-cells -including Tfh and regulatory T-cells- as well as CD8 T-cells, B-cells, macrophages and dendritic cells and discuss how the resulting multispectral confocal datasets can be quantitatively dissected using the HistoCytometry pipeline to collect information about relative frequencies and immune cell spatial distributions. Cells harboring actively transcribed virus are analyzed using an in-situ hybridization assay for the characterization of HIV mRNA positive cells in combination with additional protein markers (multispectral RNAscope). The application of this methodology to lymphoid tissues offers a means to interrogate multiple relevant immune cell targets simultaneously at increased resolution in a reproducible manner to guide CD4 T-cell studies in infection and vaccination.
CD4 T 细胞是感染和接种疫苗期间适应性免疫反应的关键介质。在次级淋巴器官中,辅助性 CD4 T 细胞,特别是那些存在于称为滤泡辅助性 T 细胞(Tfh)的生发中心的细胞,为 B 细胞提供关键的帮助,以促进其存活、同种型转换和高亲和力记忆 B 细胞的选择。另一方面,Tfh 细胞在维持 HIV 储库中的重要作用已有充分记录。因此,研究和更好地了解有助于最佳 Tfh 细胞分化和功能的组织特异性微环境和免疫亚群,对于设计成功的预防和治疗策略非常重要。在这里,我们描述了八个多光谱共聚焦显微镜免疫荧光面板的开发和优化,这些面板旨在深入表征和免疫分析福尔马林固定石蜡包埋的人类淋巴组织样本中的相关免疫细胞。我们提供了一个全面的抗体库,用于表征 CD4+T 细胞 - 包括 Tfh 和调节性 T 细胞 - 以及 CD8 T 细胞、B 细胞、巨噬细胞和树突状细胞,并讨论了如何使用 HistoCytometry 管道对产生的多光谱共聚焦数据集进行定量分析,以收集有关相对频率和免疫细胞空间分布的信息。使用原位杂交测定法分析携带活跃转录病毒的细胞,结合其他蛋白质标志物(多光谱 RNAscope)对 HIV mRNA 阳性细胞进行表征。该方法在淋巴组织中的应用提供了一种以可重复的方式以增加的分辨率同时研究多个相关免疫细胞靶标,以指导感染和接种疫苗中的 CD4 T 细胞研究的方法。
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