Geisler William M, Legg Shara B, Moylan David C, Gupta Kanupriya, Van Der Pol Barbara, Tiwari Hemant, Sabbaj Steffanie
Department of Medicine, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, AL, United States.
Department of Biostatistics, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, AL, United States.
Immunohorizons. 2025 Mar 26;9(5). doi: 10.1093/immhor/vlaf004.
This study aimed to better understand the importance of CD8 T cell responses in protective immunity to chlamydia. In women evaluated for reinfection at a 3-month follow-up visit after treatment for chlamydia, the presence or magnitude of Chlamydia trachomatis-specific CD8 interferon-gamma (IFN-γ) responses to Momp and Pgp3 peptide pools was not associated with reinfection status, despite having an increased frequency of responses compared to C. trachomatis CD4-specific T cells. However, reinfected women with detectable interferon-gamma (IFN-γ)-producing CD8 T cells had lower C. trachomatis bacterial load compared to women without these CD8 T cell responses. Moreover, the frequency of IFN-γ-producing CD8 T cells was inversely associated with C. trachomatis bacterial load. We further determined that C. trachomatis-specific IFN-γ-producing CD8 T cells were predominately late differentiated effector memory T cells that re-expressed CD45RA (Temra; CCR7-CD45RA+) or effector memory T cells (Tem; CCR7-CD45RA-). Together, these data support the concept that CD8 T cells may contribute to protective immunity against chlamydia in women.
本研究旨在更好地理解CD8 T细胞反应在衣原体保护性免疫中的重要性。在衣原体治疗后3个月随访时接受再感染评估的女性中，沙眼衣原体特异性CD8干扰素-γ（IFN-γ）对主要外膜蛋白（Momp）和富含脯氨酸糖蛋白3（Pgp3）肽池的反应的存在或强度与再感染状态无关，尽管与沙眼衣原体特异性CD4 T细胞相比，反应频率有所增加。然而，与没有这些CD8 T细胞反应的女性相比，具有可检测到的产生干扰素-γ（IFN-γ）的CD8 T细胞的再感染女性的沙眼衣原体细菌载量较低。此外，产生IFN-γ的CD8 T细胞频率与沙眼衣原体细菌载量呈负相关。我们进一步确定，沙眼衣原体特异性产生IFN-γ的CD8 T细胞主要是晚期分化的效应记忆T细胞，它们重新表达CD45RA（Temra；CCR7-CD45RA+）或效应记忆T细胞（Tem；CCR7-CD45RA-）。总之，这些数据支持CD8 T细胞可能有助于女性抵抗衣原体保护性免疫的概念。
