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A Minimum Epitope Overlap between Infections Strongly Narrows the Emerging T Cell Repertoire
Many infections are caused by pathogens that are similar, but not identical, to previously encountered viruses, bacteria, or vaccines. In such re-infections, pathogens introduce known antigens, which are recognized by memory T cells and new antigens that activate naive T cells. How preexisting memor...
Autores principales: | , , , , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
Cell Press
2016
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5081394/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27732840 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.celrep.2016.09.072 |
Sumario: | Many infections are caused by pathogens that are similar, but not identical, to previously encountered viruses, bacteria, or vaccines. In such re-infections, pathogens introduce known antigens, which are recognized by memory T cells and new antigens that activate naive T cells. How preexisting memory T cells impact the repertoire of T cells responding to new antigens is still largely unknown. We demonstrate that even a minimum epitope overlap between infections strongly increases the activation threshold and narrows the diversity of T cells recruited in response to new antigens. Thus, minimal cross-reactivity between infections can significantly impact the outcome of a subsequent immune response. Interestingly, we found that non-transferrable memory T cells are most effective in raising the activation threshold. Our findings have implications for designing vaccines and suggest that vaccines meant to target low-affinity T cells are less effective when they contain a strong CD8 T cell epitope that has previously been encountered. |
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