An age-related γδ T cell suppressor activity correlates with the outcome of autoimmunity in experimental Trypanosoma cruzi infection
✍ Scribed by Fabíola Cardillo; Roberto P. Falcao; Marcos A. Rossi; José Mengel
- Publisher
- John Wiley and Sons
- Year
- 1993
- Tongue
- English
- Weight
- 887 KB
- Volume
- 23
- Category
- Article
- ISSN
- 0014-2980
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✦ Synopsis
In this work the suppressive activity of splenic T cells from young and aged BALB/c mice infected with Trypanosoma cruzi were compared and correlated with the development of autoimmune myocarditis. The T cells from young adult BALB/c mice with acute 7: cruzi infection exhibit suppressor activity when added to full allogeneic or MIS-disparate mixed lymphocyte cultures. This suppression could not be reverted by exogenous interleukin (1L)-2 and was not directly dependent on the presence of IL-4, IL-10 or transforming growth factor-p. Further characterization of the T cell lineage responsible for the suppressor activity by in vitro and/or in vivo depletion with monoclonal antibody to ap or y6 T cell receptor revealed that splenic y6 T cells function as suppressor lymphocytes in young 7: cruzi-infected mice. In addition, these young adult BALB/c mice do not develop autoimmune myocarditis and showed a low incidence of syngeneic heart graft rejection in the early chronic phase of the infection. In contrast,T cells from acutely infected aged BALB/c mice lacked demonstrable T suppressor activity. Furthermore, these mice developed a severe autoimmune myocarditis as early as 2months after the onset of the infection, when the majority of them reject syngeneic heart grafts. These findings suggest that a y6 T cell-mediated suppressor mechanism may operate in the avoidance of the breaking of tissue-specific tolerance during the acute infection. Moreover, such a mechanism is likely related to the immune system chronobiology.