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Rapid recruitment and activation of CD8 + T cells after herpes simplex virus type 1 skin infection
Author(s) -
Stock Angus T,
Jones Claerwen M,
Heath William R,
Carbone Francis R
Publication year - 2011
Publication title -
immunology and cell biology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.999
H-Index - 104
eISSN - 1440-1711
pISSN - 0818-9641
DOI - 10.1038/icb.2010.66
Subject(s) - herpes simplex virus , priming (agriculture) , antigen , immunology , cd8 , cytotoxic t cell , t cell , antigen presentation , lymph , biology , mhc class i , antigen presenting cell , virology , immune system , virus , medicine , pathology , biochemistry , botany , germination , in vitro
After localized infection, naive antigen‐specific T cells must localize to those lymph nodes (LNs) draining the site of infection before engaging antigen‐bearing dendritic cells. Given that naive precursors are initially distributed randomly throughout the secondary lymphoid compartment, it is unclear how long it takes most antigen‐specific precursors to mobilize to draining LNs and become recruited into the primary T cell response. Here, we have examined the kinetics of these events, measuring the period over which naive precursors are recruited into the primary T cell response after cutaneous infection with herpes simplex virus type 1 (HSV‐1). We show that despite prolonged MHC class‐I‐restricted antigen presentation, most naive HSV‐specific precursors were recruited from the circulation in the first 4 days after inoculation. Furthermore, this prolonged presentation was also not essential for memory development, as truncating the period of antigen presentation to around 4 days did not affect the level of contraction, or long‐term stability of the HSV‐specific CD8 + memory T cell pool. Thus, despite initially being dispersed throughout the entire circulation, the recruitment of naive precursors is achieved quite quickly, even when priming is restricted to a small number of draining LNs.