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Resistance to murine cutaneous leishmaniasis is mediated by T H 1 cells, but disease‐promoting CD4 + cells are different from T H 2 cells
Author(s) -
Moll Heidrun,
Röllighoff Martin
Publication year - 1990
Publication title -
european journal of immunology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.272
H-Index - 201
eISSN - 1521-4141
pISSN - 0014-2980
DOI - 10.1002/eji.1830200927
Subject(s) - biology , lymphokine , leishmania major , interleukin 4 , interleukin 12 , immunology , antigen , interleukin 21 , interleukin 3 , cytotoxic t cell , interleukin 2 , microbiology and biotechnology , t cell , cytokine , immune system , in vitro , leishmania , parasite hosting , genetics , world wide web , computer science
Abstract A limiting dilution system has been used for quantitative analysis of antigen‐reactive T cells producing interleukin (IL)2, IL4 and interferon (IFN)‐γ in the course of murine infection with Leishmania major . The precursor frequencies of CD4 + cells with the potential for production of IFN‐γ, which has been associated with T H 1 cells, are much higher in resistant than in susceptible mice, whereas the reverse is found for CD4 + cells secreting IL4 which have been classified as T H 2 cells. Our results allow a better understanding of the relative contribution of these cell types at various stages of disease and can be summarized as follows: (a) secretion of IL4 can be demonstrated in short‐term clonal cultures of CD4 + cells from L. major ‐infected mice, (b) CD4 + cells releasing IL2, suggested to be a characteristic of T H 1 cells that predominate in resistant mice, can also be detected in susceptible mice at any time of infection, (c) both IL2 and IL4 are released by the progeny of individual T cells from susceptible mice and (d) the kinetics of precursor frequencies in genetically susceptible mice protected against the disease by prophylactic treatment are different from those of congenitally resistant mice, thus indicating that the development of lymphokine‐producing T cells and the establishment of protective immunity may be regulated differently in those mice. The data suggest that resistance to disease is correlated with the presence of IFN‐γ‐producing T H 1 cells, while susceptibility is associated with CD4 + cells that do not segregate into the T H 1 or T H 2 subset but display an overlapping pattern of lymphokine activities.