Private specificities of CD8 T cell responses control patterns of heterologous immunity

Kim, Sung-Kwon; Cornberg, Markus; Wang, Xiaoting Z.; Chen, Hong D.; Selin, Liisa K.; Welsh, Raymond M.

The epitope-dependent increases in cell numbers suggested that there was a variable epitope-dependent proliferation of LCMV-specific T cells induced by VV infection. To confirm this, LCMV-immune donor spleen cells (Thy1.1) were labeled with carboxyfluorescein diacetate-succinimidyl ester (CFSE) and transferred into congenic Thy 1.2 recipients. These were infected with VV and assessed 6 d later for epitope-specific increases in CD8 cell number and for cell division, as assessed by loss in CFSE (more than seven divisions). The results showed considerable variation in the specificity of the proliferating T cells between individual mice, consistent with the results in Fig. 1 (not depicted).