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Phenotypic and functional profiling of malaria‐induced CD8 and CD4 T cells during blood‐stage infection with Plasmodium yoelii
Author(s) -
Chandele Anmol,
Mukerjee Paushali,
Das Gobardhan,
Ahmed Rafi,
Chauhan Virander S.
Publication year - 2011
Publication title -
immunology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.297
H-Index - 133
eISSN - 1365-2567
pISSN - 0019-2805
DOI - 10.1111/j.1365-2567.2010.03363.x
Subject(s) - biology , plasmodium yoelii , cytotoxic t cell , granzyme b , immune system , cd8 , il 2 receptor , interleukin 21 , immunology , natural killer t cell , t cell , plasmodium falciparum , malaria , parasitemia , in vitro , biochemistry
Summary It is widely accepted that antibodies and CD4 T cells play critical roles in the immune response during the blood stage of malaria, whereas the role of CD8 T cells remains controversial. Here, we show that both CD8 and CD4 T cells robustly responded to an acute self‐limiting blood‐stage infection with Plasmodium yoelii . Similar to antigen‐specific T cells, both CD8 and CD4 T cells showed dynamic expression of the surface proteins interleukin (IL)‐7R and programmed death‐1 (PD‐1). Additionally, activated CD8 T cells showed differences in the expression of Killer cell lectin‐like receptor G1, L‐selectin and B cell lymphoma‐2 and produced granzyme B, indicating cytotoxic activity, and the initially high expression of T‐box transcription factor TBX21 in malaria‐activated CD4 T cells indicated an early T helper type 1 (Th1)‐skewed immune response. Our data demonstrate that blood‐stage malaria infection results in a striking T‐cell response and that activated CD8 and CD4 T cells have phenotypic and functional characteristics that are consistent with conventional antigen‐specific effector and memory T cells. Therefore, a better understanding of the CD8 and CD4 T‐cell response induced by blood‐stage infection may prove to be essential in the development of a vaccine that targets the erythrocytic stage of the malarial parasite.