Document Type

Article

Disciplines

Life Sciences | Medicine and Health Sciences

Abstract

Cytotoxic T lymphocytes are important targets for vaccines against a wide variety of infections that enter the body via mucosal tissues. To induce effective immunity these vaccines must include the most protective epitopes and elicit rapid recall responses at the site of infection. Although live attenuated viruses are sometimes used to induce cellular immunity against recurrent influenza infections, the mechanisms that determine the magnitude of the response to individual viral components are very poorly defined. Heterosubtypic infections in B6 mice illustrate an additional level of complexity, when the antigen-specificity of the response shifts dramatically between primary and secondary challenge. This model provides a unique opportunity to identify the mechanisms that regulate memory CD8 T cell reactivation in vivo and control the specificity of the recall response by pathogen-specific CTL. We show that multiple factors contribute to the changing pattern of immunodominance during secondary infection, including the location of the memory CD8 T cells at the time of reinfection and their ability to directly recognize migratory CD103+ DC as they arrive in the lung draining lymph node.

Comments

Eur J Immunol. Author manuscript; available in PMC 2012 December 7. Published in final edited form as: Eur J Immunol. 2011 September; 41(9): 2632–2641. Published online 2011 August 18. doi: 10.1002/eji.201141546 PMCID: PMC3517118 NIHMSID: NIHMS401177

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