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*
Laboratory of Clinical Investigation and
Flow Cytometry Unit, Office of the Scientific Director, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD 20892
| Abstract |
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| Introduction |
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-coupled
receptor(s) on the migrating cells. The discovery of chemokines, a
family of >30 chemotactic cytokines that act through
seven-transmembrane domain, G protein-coupled receptors (reviewed in
6), provided candidate factors for regulating migration and
perhaps other aspects of lymphocyte biology. The possible importance of
chemokines in lymphocyte trafficking is suggested by the large number
of chemokines, found in each of the four chemokine subfamilies, that
have been shown to be active on lymphocytes in vitro (reviewed in Refs. 7 and 8).
While the array of chemokines that target lymphocytes is wide
enough to suggest the possibility of specific relationships between
individual chemokines and lymphocyte subsets, the logic underlying
these relationships has not been readily apparent.
A number of studies have described differential effects of particular
chemokines on lymphocyte subsets (9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16) and have investigated the
effects of T cell activation on responses to chemokines (11, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22).
Most of the work on chemokine targeting of lymphocyte subsets has
relied on in vitro chemotaxis assays, and as revealed by the reading of
the above cited papers, these assays have sometimes yielded
contradictory results. For example,
MIP-1ß2 has been reported to favor CD4 T
cells over CD8 T cells (10, 11) and CD8 T cells over CD4 T cells (12)
and to show no real CD4/CD8 bias (14). MIP-1
has been reported to
attract selectively memory cells (14) (11) and to attract memory and
naive cells equally (10). Similarly, T cell activation through CD3 has
been reported to enhance (11) or inhibit (18, 19) migration to
MIP-1
, RANTES, and other CC chemokines.
Recently, as Abs to some chemokine receptors have become available, information has begun to emerge on the expression of receptors on lymphocyte subsets (15, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30). In an attempt to clarify and expand information on selective activities for chemokines on subsets of resting and activated lymphocytes, we have systematically evaluated chemokine receptor expression on human T cells isolated from peripheral blood, either freshly isolated or after short term activation through Ag receptor in vitro. We have correlated receptor expression with two indicators of chemokine responsiveness, an increase in [Ca]i and chemotaxis. The chemokine-induced rise in [Ca]i is an early consequence of receptor activation, and the assay for calcium flux has the advantages of avoiding the idiosyncrasies of particular chemotaxis assays and, when performed on the flow cytometer, allowing for the phenotyping of responding cells using an array of surface markers. Additionally, the calcium assay can be used equally well with resting and activated T cells for analyzing the phenotypes of cells responding to chemokines, while phenotypic analysis of responses among activated cells using the chemotaxis assay can be problematic due to the high background chemokinesis. We have, however, analyzed chemotaxis in resting cells because of the assays physiological relevance and to correlate chemotaxis with the results using the calcium flux assay.
By analyzing a panel of chemokine receptors and chemokines, we have been able to appreciate significant connections between individual chemokine receptors and their ligands and subsets of activated and resting T cells. Our data suggest distinct roles for chemokine receptors during the T lymphocytes transition from naive to memory cell. Moreover, we have demonstrated that at least one consequence of receptor activation in lymphocytes, namely the ability to produce a global rise in [Ca]i, is regulated independently of receptor expression per se. Together, our data show that there are significant T cell subset-specific effects of chemokines that are achieved by varying both receptor expression and receptor signaling, and our findings predict that as we increase the number of parameters by which we analyze lymphocyte responses to chemokines we will discover that receptors and ligands that appear redundant in fact serve unique functions.
| Materials and Methods |
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All culture media, salt solutions, and FBS were obtained from Life Technologies (Gaithersburg, MD). Anti-CD3 mAb (OKT3, pharmaceutical grade) was obtained from Ortho Biotech (Raritan, NJ). The fluorescein conjugates anti-CD45RO (clone UCHL-1) and anti-CD8 (clone HIT8a) were purchased from PharMingen (San Diego, CA). Phycoerythrin (PE)-conjugated anti-CD8 (clone HIT8a), avidin, anti-CCR5 (clone 2D7), and anti-CXCR4 (clone 12G5) were obtained from PharMingen, and PE-anti-CD62L (clone TQ1) was obtained from Coulter Diagnostics (Hialeah, FL). PE-goat anti-mouse and anti-rabbit IgG were purchased from Southern Biotechnology (Birmingham, AL). Cy5PE-conjugated anti-CD8 (clone HIT8a) was obtained from PharMingen, Cy5PE-anti-CD4 (clone Q4120) was purchased from Sigma (St. Louis, MO), and allophycocyanin conjugate of anti-CD8 (clone RPA-T8) was purchased from PharMingen. The anti-CD56 (clone NCAM 16.2) was conjugated to Cy5PE by Becton Dickinson (San Jose, CA) and was the gift of Calman Prussin, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Institutes of Health (Bethesda, MD). Rabbit polyclonal anti-CCR1 was the gift of Naofumi Mukaida, Kanazawa University (Ishikawa, Japan). Normal rabbit IgG was purchased from Pierce (Rockford, IL). Biotin anti-CCR2 was purchased from R&D Systems, (Minneapolis, MN). Anti-CXCR3 and anti-CCR3 (clones 1C6 and 7B11, respectively) were the gifts of Paul Ponath (Leukosite, Cambridge, MA). The anti-CCR3 mAb was conjugated to succinimidyl-4-(N-maleimidomethyl)cyclohexane-1-carboxylate-PE (Prozyme, San Leandro, CA) according to the protocol of A. Kantor and M. Roederer (http://cmgm. stanford.edu/roederer/abcon/).
Recombinant HuMig was produced and purified from supernatants of insect
cells as previously described (31). We used HuMig that was produced in
our laboratory or obtained from PharMingen; the sp. act. of the
in-house vs commercial preparations were identical as determined by
calcium responses on the B10 tumor-infiltrating lymphocyte (TIL) line
(data not shown). Recombinant SDF-1
and SDF-1ß were gifts of
Monica Tsang (R&D Systems). All other recombinant chemokines were
purchased from PeproTech (Rocky Hill, NJ).
TIL and PBMC
The B10 TIL line, described previously (32), was maintained in RPMI, 10% FBS, and 500 U/ml IL-2 (Cetus, Emeryville, CA). This line has been determined to be monoclonal by virtue of amplification by PCR of only a single band from the cDNA encoding the Vß11 TCR chain (Mark Connors, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, unpublished observation).
Buffy coats were collected from normal donors by the Department of Transfusion Medicine at the National Institutes of Health, PBMC were isolated by Ficoll-Hypaque (Pharmacia, Uppsala, Sweden) density centrifugation, and residual RBC were lysed with ACK lysing buffer (Biofluids, Rockville, MD). For activation, PBMC were then placed in culture in 24-well plates at a density of 5 x 106/ml with penicillin/streptomycin and the anti-CD3 mAb OKT3 (5 µg/ml) for 3 days.
Multiparameter flow cytometry
PBMC, either freshly isolated or stimulated with OKT3 for 3 days, were suspended in HBSS with calcium and magnesium, 10 mM HEPES, and 1% FBS (HBSS/FBS). To this cell suspension, the fluorescent calcium probe indo-1 (indo-1/acetoxymethylester) and the detergent Pleuronic (Molecular Probes, Eugene, OR) were added at final concentrations of 10 µM and 300 µg/ml, respectively. Also added were anti-CD14-conjugated magnetic beads (Dynal, Lake Success, NY). The final suspension of cells, probe, and magnetic beads was incubated at 30°C for 45 min with frequent gentle agitation. After removal of magnetic beads (and adhered monocytes/macrophages), PBL were washed twice and incubated with saturating levels of conjugated mAb for 15 min at room temperature with frequent agitation, after which they were washed and resuspended in HBSS/FBS. Monocytes/macrophages in the PBL after treatment with magnetic beads were usually <1% of all viable cells and were always <2%. The use of magnetic beads and indo-1 did not affect the relative percentages of lymphocyte subsets (data not shown).
For phenotypic analysis, PBL were analyzed on a FACSCalibur or a FACSVantage flow cytometer (Becton Dickinson Immunocytometry Systems, San Jose, CA). For calcium flux, PBL were analyzed on a FACSVantage flow cytometer equipped with an argon laser tuned to 488 nm and a krypton laser tuned to 360 nm. Indo-1 fluorescence was analyzed at 390/20 and 530/20 for bound and free probe, respectively (33). The signals for bound and unbound indo-1 were collected in the linear mode. The FACSVantage was equipped with two modifications necessary for reproducible measurement of chemokine-induced calcium flux: a Time Zero injection module (Cytek, Fremont, CA) and a ratio offset, so that the gain of the fluorescent ratio could be increased while keeping the baseline signal in the lower channels.
For each stimulation, an aliquot of PBL (0.5 ml total volume) was
warmed at 37°C for 3 min before loading into the Time Zero module.
Cells were collected for 30 s, at which time 50 µl of HBSS/FBS
was added as a sham injection. At 60 s, chemokine, also in a total
volume of 50 µl, was injected. The final concentration of chemokine
was well above that which was determined to yield the maximal response
according to dose-response curves (2 µg/ml). Cells were analyzed at a
rate of 10002000 cells/s. The flow cytometer is configured such that
the delay between ligand addition and signal detection is <15 s. Thus,
detection of calcium levels by the flow cytometer is usually before or
coincident with the onset of the calcium flux and is always prior to
its peak (
25 s).
The percentage of cells that responded by an increase in intracellular calcium after stimulation with chemokine was determined using Multitime Software for Analysis of Kinetic Flow Cytometry Data (Phoenix Flow Systems, San Diego, CA). A threshold of ratio fluorescence was determined in the window of time after buffer addition but before addition of chemokine. The threshold separated the 5% of the cells with the highest ratio from the cells whose fluorescence ratios were lower. This threshold was then applied to the time window following the addition of chemokine. The maximum number of cells above the threshold averaged over a 6-s time interval (so that spurious spikes in calcium flux do not result in overestimation of the number of responding cells) was expressed as a percentage of all the cells in the same interval. From this number we subtracted 5, the percentage of cells above threshold in the resting time window, to obtain the percentage of cells responding.
Chemotaxis
Monocyte-depleted PBL were suspended in RPMI with 1% human serum albumin and loaded in triplicate into a disposable chemotaxis apparatus (ChemoTx, Neuroprobe, Gaithersburg, MD). Chemokines were placed in the lower wells at concentrations determined to yield maximum migration (300600 ng/ml). After incubation for 3 h at 37°C, cells from 20 lower wells were pooled; stained for expression of CD4, CD8, CD45RO, and CD62L; fixed; and analyzed on a FACSCalibur flow cytometer.
Statistics
Differences in responses among the chemokines tested were determined by analysis of variance. Differences between the responses of two subsets to a given chemokine were determined by paired t test. All statistical analysis was performed with StatView for the Macintosh operating system (Abacus Concepts, Berkeley, CA).
| Results |
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We first determined the expression of a panel of chemokine
receptors on naive and memory T cell subsets, on both freshly isolated
cells and cells activated in vitro. We defined the naive subset
(rounded gate, Fig. 1
) as being both
CD45RO- and CD62L+ (34), and the memory subset
as being CD45RO+ (rectangular gate, Fig. 1
) or
CD45RO- CD62L-. For activations, PBMC were
incubated with OKT3 for 3 days to produce lymphoblasts analogous to
cells fully activated, but in the early stages of differentiation after
encountering Ag. In the text that follows, we will refer to both
freshly isolated and recently activated cells that are
CD45RO- and CD62L+ as naive, recognizing that
the latter are in transition to effector/memory cells.
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Chemotaxis of freshly isolated PBL
Table I
shows relationships among chemokine
receptors and chemokines that are relevant to this study to facilitate
understanding the data that follow on chemokine responses. For the
reasons discussed in the introduction, among them the difficulties in
obtaining reliable chemotaxis data on lymphocyte subsets in
OKT3-activated cells that have high levels of background chemokinesis
(not shown), we relied primarily on our flow cytometry-based assay of
calcium signaling to analyze responses among T cell subsets. However,
for comparative purposes we also performed modified Boyden chamber
chemotaxis assays with selected chemokines on the freshly isolated
lymphocytes, as shown in Fig. 3
. Fig. 3
A
shows the lower chamber cells stained for CD4 and CD8 and demonstrates
that MCP-1 preferentially attracted CD4 T cells. Using a minimum
estimate of preferential migration obtained by comparing percentages of
CD4 and CD8 T cells in the lower wells in the absence and the presence
of chemokines for three experiments, the CD4 vs CD8 bias for MCP-1 was
significant when compared with either no chemokine (paired t
test, p = 0.02), or HuMig (p =
0.02) or RANTES (p = 0.002, not shown). These
data are consistent with the receptor staining in Fig. 1
, where levels
of CCR2 were minimal on resting CD8 T cells. Also consistent with the
receptor staining data for CCR5 as well as CCR1, RANTES showed
preferential activity on CD8 vs CD4 cells compared with no chemokine
(p = 0.01), and HuMig showed a trend in the
same direction that was not statistically significant (not shown). The
data for memory and naive subsets in Fig. 3
B show that all
three chemokines preferentially attracted the memory subsets of CD4 T
cells, and consistent with CXCR3 expression, HuMig attracted
significant numbers of naive CD8 T cells. The lack of a detectable
response to MCP-1 and RANTES among naive CD8 T cells is in line with
the staining data for CCR2 and CCR5 on these cells presented in Fig. 2
, although some activity with RANTES might have been expected given the
presence of CCR1. It is noteworthy that the preferential migration of
the memory subset among CD8 T cells to MCP-1 compared with no
chemokine, as shown in Fig. 2
B, indicates that although
MCP-1 showed a clear CD4 T cell bias, some CD8 T cells also responded.
The preferential responses of memory cells to RANTES and MCP-1 have
been well described in the literature (9, 13).
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Our flow-based assay for calcium flux permitted us to identify
responding subsets directly by using phenotypic surface markers and to
compare responses quantitatively in terms of the percentage of cells
within a subset showing an increase in [Ca]i above a
threshold value (see Materials and Methods for details).
With few exceptions (see below) calcium signals were not seen with
chemokines on freshly isolated cells, but only after activation with
OKT3. Because, in general, the signaling data using the OKT3-activated
cells correlated with patterns of receptor expression, the data using
the OKT3-activated cells will be shown first. Some chemokines failed to
produce detectable calcium responses, even on activated cells,
including eotaxin, IL-8, GRO-
, PF-4, I-309, and lymphotactin, and
these negative data are omitted.
To illustrate one of the general features of the calcium responses in
PBL, Fig. 4
compares signals to the CCR5-specific ligand
MIP-1ß in OKT3-activated PBL with the signals in a monoclonal line of
TIL maintained by repeated stimulation in vitro. All calcium flux
assays were performed using concentrations of chemokines well above
those producing maximal responses as determined by dose titrations (not
shown). As anticipated, the responses of the TIL line were uniform
(Fig. 4
A). In contrast, there were partial responses among
the heterogeneous populations of PBL. One obvious possibility for the
heterogeneity in signaling was cell-to-cell differences in levels of
receptor expression. Fig. 4
B shows responses to MIP-1ß of
cells stained for CCR5. Staining did not alter the calcium responses,
since approximately the same percentage of cells responded to MIP-1ß
in the absence of anti-CCR5 (data not shown). While MIP-1ß
responses were found only in the CCR5+ cells, not all
CCR5+ cells responded to MIP-1ß with a calcium flux. Fig. 4
C also demonstrates that there was almost no difference
between levels of staining for CCR5 in the MIP-1ß-responding vs
nonresponding cells, so that other unknown factors must be accounting
for the differences in signaling.
|
0.050.0001).
Paired t tests of the cumulative data confirmed that MCP-1
and MCP-3 stimulated significantly more CD4 than CD8 T cells (MCP-1,
p
0.001; MCP-3, p
0.04).
Conversely, HuMig stimulated a rise in intracellular calcium in
significantly more CD8 than CD4 T cells (p
0.001). No other chemokines tested demonstrated a significant
preference between CD4 and CD8 T cells among the activated cells.
|
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0.050.0005); this was clearly not the case for the CC chemokines.
There were also differences in potencies among the CC chemokines for
the CD8 T cell memory subsets. MIP-1
was more potent for all three
memory subsets than MIP-1ß (p
0.050.01)
and was more potent for the CD45RO+ CD62L+
(p
0.05) subset than RANTES. The higher
activities of MIP-1
and RANTES on CD8 cells overall compared with
MIP-1ß might have been due to signaling through CCR1. Indeed, with
considerable donor-dependent variability, saturating amounts of
MIP-1ß did not fully desensitize the activated T cells to MIP-1
(not shown).
|
In contrast to OKT3-activated lymphoblasts, freshly isolated PBL did
not flux calcium in response to most chemokines tested, including
HuMig, IP-10, MIP-1
, MIP-1ß, and RANTES. However, calcium fluxes
were seen in response to SDF-1 and MCP-1, but only in the memory subset
of CD4 T cells (Fig. 8
). Because we had shown that
cellular activation potentiated receptor signaling, we stained the
freshly isolated cells for the activation markers HLA-DR, CD69, and
CD25, but found that the responding memory cells were negative for
these cell surface Ags (not shown). While the results for MCP-1
correlated with expression of CCR2 as seen in Fig. 2
, signaling by
SDF-1 clearly did not correlate with levels of expression of CXCR4,
since CXCR4 was no higher on the CD4 memory subset of fresh CD4 T cells
than on the other subsets where no calcium signals were seen.
Additionally, on a number of subsets of freshly isolated PBL that
failed to signal, receptors were expressed at levels similar to those
on responding subsets of activated cells. For example, levels of CCR5
were similar on fresh and activated memory CD8 T cells, and levels of
CXCR4 were similar on fresh and activated naive CD8 T cells, yet
signaling by MIP-1ß and SDF-1 were seen only on these subsets after
activation. Similarly, despite readily detectable CXCR3 on CD8 and
memory CD4 T cells, no calcium signals were seen with HuMig and IP-10
without prior cellular activation. It also follows from the data
presented above that chemotactic responses in resting T cell subsets to
specific chemokines were seen in the absence of calcium signals, as,
for example, with HuMig and RANTES and with MCP-1 on CD8 T cells.
|
| Discussion |
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Combining data on naive and memory cells freshly isolated and after activation can provide information not only about the possible role of receptors and chemokines on these subsets per se, but also about the evolution of receptor expression and function as a T cell moves from naive to activated to memory and then through subsequent reactivation. Our activation protocol used OKT3 to cross-link CD3 in the presence of macrophages for 3 days. In vivo studies show that T cell blasts begin to leave the lymph node after 2 days of Ag challenge (35), so that our activation protocol might be expected to produce cells equivalent to blasts that circulate during the early phases of an immune response.
Of the six receptors we analyzed, only CXCR4 and CCR1 were found at significant levels on freshly isolated naive CD4 cells, consistent with published data (24, 36). The activity of CCR1 on freshly isolated PBL has not been well characterized due to an absence of a CCR1-specific agonist. For CXCR4, however, it is clear that its specific ligand, SDF-1, can deliver potent chemotactic signals to all subsets of resting lymphocytes, including naive CD4 cells (37), and can rapidly induce adhesion of naive CD4 cells to ICAM-1 (38), providing strong circumstantial evidence that SDF-1 and CXCR4 are relevant in the trafficking of these cells.
Activation of naive CD4 cells led to rapid up-regulation of CXCR3, but
not of the CC chemokine receptors. Not only was CXCR3 expressed on
these cells, but the receptor was functional, as measured by calcium
flux on cells from multiple donors to both HuMig and IP-10 (Fig. 6
).
These results suggest that CXCR3 and its ligands may play a unique role
in the early stages of T cell activation. Expression of functional
CXCR3 on CD4 lymphoblasts would be anticipated to direct activated
cells, for example those effector cells and effector cell precursors
exiting lymphoid tissue in the days following Ag stimulation, to
peripheral sites where the CXCR3 ligands HuMig, IP-10, and
IFN-inducible T cell
chemoattractant (ITAC) are being
expressed. Because the CXCR3 ligands are all dramatically induced by
IFN-
, with some responding as well to other IFNs and inflammatory
cytokines (39, 40), the expected result would be for newly activated
CD4 cells to continue to differentiate in a Th1 environment, leading to
the production of Th1 cells and a Th1-biased response overall.
Furthermore, naive CD8 T cells, which express CXCR3 and respond by
chemotaxis to HuMig (Fig. 3
), produce IFN-
in response to
stimulation through the TCR (34). So naive CD8 cells, responding to
CXCR3 ligands, might also contribute to a Th1-biased response. These
results add to the data in the literature showing preferential
expression of CXCR3 on T cells differentiated to a Th1 compared with a
Th2 phenotype (29).
Our results on the induction of CXCR3 expression within several days of Ag receptor cross-linking are at odds with a previous report (26). In experiments of in vitro activation, these authors reported that CXCR3 was induced similarly to CCR5 only after prolonged incubation with IL-2. However, in analysis of freshly isolated PBL the authors also reported that, unlike CCR5, CXCR3 was coexpressed with CD25 and CD69, markers of acute activation. While we have no explanation for the discrepancies in the observations on the effects of in vitro activation on CXCR3 expression, the presence of CXCR3 on recently activated cells in the freshly isolated PBL is consistent with our findings. Most importantly, the validity of our results is reinforced by our data on calcium responses to both HuMig and IP-10 in 3-day activated naive CD4 cells from multiple donors.
The CC chemokine receptors CCR2, CCR3, and CCR5 were not expressed on
fresh, naive CD4 cells (Fig. 2
). The absence of these receptors on
resting, naive CD4 cells is well described in the literature (15, 23, 28). As a result of the absence of receptors on these cells, it
would be expected that the corresponding chemokine ligands, expressed
at peripheral sites, would not divert resting naive cells from
trafficking appropriately through peripheral lymphoid tissue. In
marked contrast with CXCR3, however, the CC receptors were not induced
on naive CD4 cells that had been recently activated, nor were
significant responses seen on activated naive cells to the CC ligands
(Figs. 6
and 7
). Published data demonstrate induction of high
expression of functional CC chemokine receptors after long term
incubation with IL-2 (19) and/or after repeated activation in defined
Th1 or Th2 cytokine environments (28, 29, 41), and we have shown high
levels of receptor mRNA expression (42) and CC chemokine signaling
(R. L. Rabin and J. M. Farber, unpublished observations) on
lines of tumor infiltrating lymphocytes that have been maintained in
vitro with IL-2 and repeated rounds of restimulation with PHA.
Together, these data suggest that on CD4 T cells, this group of CC
chemokine receptors functions only on the fully differentiated
populations.
Patterns of receptor expression on CD8 T cells differed in some
respects from those seen on CD4 T cells. CXCR3, for example, was
readily detected and functional, as judged by chemotaxis, on resting
naive CD8 T cells, although, as on CD4 T cells, CXCR3 expression was
markedly increased during activation. An interesting observation for
CXCR3 and memory CD8 T cells was the preferential signaling of HuMig
and IP-10 on the CD62L+ subset (Fig. 7
) despite no obvious
difference in receptor levels between the CD62L+ and
CD62L- cells (not shown). CLA+ memory T cells
that home specifically to skin are found within the CD62L+
subset of CD8 T cells, and we have shown that all the freshly isolated
CLA+ cells express CXCR3 (R. L. Rabin and J. M.
Farber, unpublished observation). Because CLA is induced by IL-12 (43),
this finding is consistent with persistent expression of CXCR3 on cells
differentiated in a Th1 environment. In particular, this finding
suggests that CXCR3 and its ligands may be important in contact
hypersensitivity, a Th1-type response produced by CD8+
effector cells (44). Of note, HuMig and IP-10 have been shown to be
produced at high levels by keratinocytes treated with IFN-
(45, 46).
CC chemokine receptors were also expressed and regulated somewhat
differently on CD8 vs CD4 T cells. Like naive CD4 T cells, resting and
activated naive CD8 T cells were negative for CCR5, but unlike memory
CD4 T cells, memory CD8 T cells showed no up-regulation of CCR5 after
activation. In contrast, while CCR1 showed little induction on
activated CD4 T cells, CCR1 expression was modestly enhanced by
activation of CD8 T cells. CCR2 was unusual in that it functioned
preferentially on CD4 T cells in assays for both chemotaxis and calcium
flux despite the lack of a dramatic difference in CCR2 expression
between CD4 and CD8 T cells. While some of the published literature has
reported no differences in chemotaxis of CD4 and CD8 PBL (47) or T cell
clones (18) to MCP-1 and MCP-3, other published chemotaxis data (13, 14) support our observations, which, in the case of our calcium flux
assays, are based on cumulative data from 17 donors. Our data for
preferential migration of resting CD8 vs CD4 T cells to RANTES are also
at odds with published data showing either no chemotaxis (9) or
significant, but no preferential, chemotaxis (14) of CD8 T cells to
RANTES. While we have no explanation for these discrepancies, our data
our consistent with the higher expression of CCR5 on resting CD8
compared with CD4 cells as shown in Fig. 2
and as demonstrated
previously (30).
Lastly, our analysis of calcium responses to chemokines showed, not
surprisingly, a correlation between signaling on NK cells and CD8
cells, with NK cells responding to SDF-1, HuMig, IP-10, MIP-1
, and
RANTES with little or no response to MIP-1ß, MCP-1 and MCP-3. Except
for SDF-1, which has been shown to produce a calcium signal in NK cells
(48), other published data on NK cell responses to chemokines have
relied on chemotaxis and have shown responses to MIP-1
, MCP-1,
MCP-3, RANTES, and IP-10, with one group reporting negative (49) and
one group reporting positive (50) results for MIP-1ß. Because our
analysis of NK cell responses was limited to calcium signaling, we
cannot exclude the possibility that NK cells may show other responses,
such as chemotaxis, to MIP-1ß, MCP-1, and MCP-3.
A novel conclusion from our study is that receptor expression is often not the sole determinant of responses to chemokines. This is reflected in our observations, using the calcium flux assay, that 1) only a minority of receptor-expressing cells respond with a rise in [Ca]i, and the response is not simply a function of the level of receptor expression; 2) there are subset-related differences in signaling by a given receptor, such as a calcium flux to SDF-1 in freshly isolated cells occurring only in the memory subset of CD4 T cells despite equal or higher levels of CXCR4 in other subsets, preferential activity for MCP-1 (and MCP-3) on CD4 compared with CD8 T cells that could not be explained by differences in CCR2 expression, and preferential signaling in the activated CD62L+ memory CD8 T cells by HuMig and IP-10 despite no difference in CXCR3 expression between the CD62L+ and CD62L- memory CD8 T cells (data not shown); and 3) calcium signaling is affected by cellular activation. For example, prominent calcium responses to SDF-1 are seen on activated, but not freshly isolated, naive CD8 T cells despite equal or higher levels of CXCR4 on the fresh naive cells; responses are seen on activated, but not freshly isolated, memory CD8 T cells with MIP-1ß despite equal or greater expression of CCR5 on the fresh memory cells, and no calcium fluxes are seen on resting cells with HuMig or IP-10 despite readily detectable CXCR3 expression. These last observations suggest that pathways leading to calcium fluxer are subject to physiological regulation within cells of a given subset.
Where we compared chemotaxis and calcium signals on the freshly isolated cells, there were clear discrepancies, with the results of the chemotaxis assays more closely reflecting the pattern of receptor expression among T cell subsets. Once the cells had been activated, however, receptors were competent to produce global increases in [Ca]i, so that patterns of calcium signaling more closely matched those of receptor expression, although contributions from CCR1 were not seen consistently, and we detected no signals from the low levels of expression of CCR3.
While our data are limited by not visualizing both chemotaxis and
calcium fluxes simultaneously in individual cells, our finding of
chemotaxis in populations of cells without detectable calcium flux is
in line with the well-documented dissociation between the two
phenomena. Calcium fluxers have been shown to be neither necessary nor
sufficient for stimulation of actin association with cytoskeleton (51)
or for chemotaxis in standard assays using a variety of chemotactic
factors (52, 53, 54). For chemokines specifically, MCP-2 is chemotactic for
monocytes without producing demonstrable increases in
[Ca]i (55), and MIP-1
was shown to mobilize calcium in
neutrophils without causing chemotaxis (56). One interpretation of our
data might be that calcium flux has and chemotaxis in lymphocytes are
independent consequences of a common G protein-dependent signaling
pathway, but that detecting the calcium signal requires that the
amplitude of the signal through that pathway be increased by cellular
activation. Against this simple model is the report that chemotaxis
mediated through CCR2 can be inhibited by diminishing the concentration
of agonist-induced free G protein ß
subunits without eliminating
calcium flux (54). In light of these findings, chemokine-induced
calcium flux in activated T cells may be the result not simply of
increasing the amplitude of the signaling pathways present in resting
cells, but of the induction of an additional G protein-dependent
pathway(s) subject to independent regulation.
If calcium flux and chemotaxis are independent phenomena, then it is reasonable to ask whether calcium fluxes have a physiological role in responses to chemotactic factors. One possible role would be in nonchemotactic processes induced by chemotactic factors, such as in adhesion or as has been shown for the requirement for calcium in exocytosis in neutrophils (57). There are, however, data suggesting that although not necessary for chemotaxis in the usual in vitro assays, calcium flux is important for chemotaxis on particular substrates that are relevant in vivo, such as fibronectin and vitronectin. On these substrates, buffering of [Ca]i leads to neutrophil immobilization due to an inability to break strong attachments (53). How these observations relate to lymphocytes are unknown, but they point out that although calcium flux may be unrelated to cellular motility per se, these fluxes may be central to trafficking in the more complex environment found in vivo.
By comparing receptor cell surface expression, calcium signaling, and chemotaxis for multiple chemokine receptors/chemokines in resting and activated lymphocyte subsets we have strengthened some previously reported observations and uncovered new relationships that suggest distinguishable roles for individual receptors and their ligands. A number of recent reports have described the selective expression of chemokine receptors on Th1 and Th2 cells that have been fully differentiated in vitro, often by repeated rounds of stimulation in highly polarized environments with cytokines (28, 29, 41, 58, 59, 60). Our data contribute to an additional perspective. In this view, the chemokine system can be understood not only within the Th1/Th2 paradigm, but also in terms of the stages of T cell activation and differentiation that are characterized by distinct patterns of trafficking. In reference to the ligands and receptors investigated here, SDF-1, a chemokine not associated with inflammatory responses, and its receptor CXCR4 can function on all subsets, including naive, resting cells; CXCR3 and its ligands become functional on recently activated, undifferentiated cells; and CXCR3 expression is subsequently maintained and poised for rapid up-regulation with reactivation. Receptors such as CCR2, CCR3, and CCR5 function only on the fully differentiated cells, and receptor expression is enhanced with continued and repeated cellular activation. In addition, we have found that the ability to produce a global calcium signal differs among receptors within a given T cell subset, and that for a given receptor signaling pathways can be regulated, depending on the cells state of activation and differentiation. These data may help in the design of interventions to manipulate the chemokine system to augment immunity or diminish inflammatory injury.
| Acknowledgments |
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| Footnotes |
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2 Abbreviations used in this paper: MIP, macrophage inflammatory protein; [Ca]i, intracellular calcium concentration; PE, phycoerythrin; CCR, CC chemokine receptor; CXCR, CXC chemokine receptor; HuMig, human monokine induced by interferon-
; TIL, tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes; SDF-1, stromal cell-derived factor-1; MCP, macrophage chemoattractant protein; CLA, cutaneous lymphocyte-associated antigen; IP-10, interferon-
-inducible protein-10. ![]()
Received for publication October 21, 1998. Accepted for publication December 22, 1998.
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