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* Medical Research Council Human Immunology Unit, Institute of Molecular Medicine, John Radcliffe Hospital, Oxford, United Kingdom;
Center for Immunology, St. Vincents Hospital, Sydney, Australia;
Sydney Childrens Hospital, Sydney, Australia;
Department of HIV/GUM, Guys, Kings, and St. Thomas School of Medicine, Weston Education Center, London, United Kingdom; and
¶ National Center in HIV Epidemiology and Clinical Research, University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia
| Abstract |
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| Introduction |
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By studying perforin expression in CD4+ T cells, we present here for the first time a detailed ex vivo identification and characterization of CD4+ cytotoxic T cells. These cells display a distinct functional phenotype in comparison with more classical CD4+ T cells. Although found at a low level in healthy donors, the CD4+ CTL subset is expanded from the early stages of HIV infection. The presence of CD4+ CTLs appears to be associated with inflammatory conditions, which suggests a role for these cells in the immune response.
| Materials and Methods |
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Samples were taken from volunteers attending clinics in London, U.K., or Sydney, Australia. The study was approved by the relevant local institutional review boards and ethical committees. HIV-infected patients were classified into four different groups: primary HIV-1 infection (as previously described in Ref. 16), chronic untreated or undergoing treatment with ART (patients infected for >4 yr and displaying signs of progression with increasing viral load and decreasing CD4+ T cell counts), and nonprogressor (patients with no sign of progression and CD4+ counts >500 cells/ml for a median of 13 yr without therapy). EBV-infected patients were identified in primary infection as symptomatic and IgM positive by serology for EBV (16). Blood samples were generally used fresh within 8 h, or PBMCs were separated from heparinized blood and cryopreserved for subsequent studies.
FACS analysis and in vitro stimulation
Cell surface and intracellular staining was generally conducted directly on whole blood. In the studies performed in Oxford, a panel of titrated anti-human Abs was added to 150 µl heparinized blood for 15 min at room temperature. The lymphocytes were then fixed, and the RBC were lysed using FACS lysis solution (BD Biosciences, San Diego, CA). Cells were washed and permeabilized in FACS permeabilization buffer (BD Biosciences). After washing, intracellular staining was performed for 15 min at room temperature in the dark using titrated concentration of Abs. Cells were then washed and stored in Cell Fix buffer (BD Biosciences) at 4°C until flow cytometric analysis was performed. GMP-17 or CCR7 staining was followed by addition of anti-mouse Ig Abs (FITC) and staining for cell surface markers. Samples were analyzed on a FACSCalibur (BD Biosciences) after compensation was checked using freshly stained PBMCs. Essentially identical methods were used in studies performed in Sydney, as previously described (16), and analyzed on an EPICS XL (Coulter, Hialeah, FL).
For IL-2, TNF-
, and IFN-
staining, cells were first stimulated
for 6 h with staphylococcal enterotoxin B
(SEB4; 5 µg/ml;
Sigma, St. Louis, MO), PMA (50 ng/ml)/ionomycin (1 µg/ml; Sigma), or
CMV lysate (10 µg/ml; ABi, Columbia, MA) in the presence of brefeldin
A (10 µg/ml; Sigma). CFSE labeling was performed by incubating PBMCs
with 5 µM CFSE (Molecular Probes, Eugene, OR) in RPMI for 10 min at
37°C before quenching with ice-cold 10% FCS RPMI and washing. The
cells were then incubated with SEB (5 µg/ml) or immobilized OKT3 (10
µg/ml) for 5 days before staining (neither anti-CD28 Abs nor IL-2
were added). The following Abs were used in different combinations.
Anti-CD4 (PerCP), anti-CD27 (FITC or allophycocyanin),
anti-CD28 (FITC or allophycocyanin), anti-CD45RO (FITC or
allophycocyanin), anti-CD45RA (FITC), anti-perforin (FITC or
PE), anti-granzyme A (FITC), anti-IL-2 (PE), anti-IFN-
(allophycocyanin), anti-TNF-
(FITC), and anti-CCR7
(purified) Abs were purchased from BD Pharmingen; anti-GMP-17 Abs
(purified or PE) were obtained from Immunotech (Marseilles, France);
and anti-CD45RB (FITC), anti-mouse Ig (FITC) and isotype
controls were purchased from DAKO (Glostrup, Denmark).
Cytotoxic assay
EBV-transformed autologous B cell lines were used as target cells in a modified 51Cr release CTL assays. 51Cr labeling was performed for 1 h, following which cells were pulsed for 1 h in the presence of SEB (5 µg/ml; Sigma) and washed twice in RPMI medium. Controls included target cells incubated with medium or 5% Triton X-100 only. CD4+ T cells were positively selected from freshly isolated PBMCs by means of anti-CD4 MACS beads (Miltenyi Biotec, Auburn, CA; the positively selected population was 99% pure) and added to the targets at different E:T cell ratios in duplicate. Inhibition of perforin-mediated cytotoxicity was obtained by incubating the CD4+ T cells for 2 h with 100 nM concanamycin A (CMA; Sigma). Specific 51Cr release was calculated from the following equation: ([experimental release - spontaneous release]/[maximum release - spontaneous release]) x 100%.
| Results |
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We analyzed the expression of perforin in
CD4+ T cells (gated on CD3-positive and
CD8-negative or -dim) present in PBMC samples freshly obtained from
volunteers. As expected, the numbers of perforin-expressing
CD4+ T cells in healthy donors was generally low
(mean ± SE, 2.2 ± 0.6% of CD4+ T
cells; Fig. 1
A); however,
outliers with obvious perforin expression in the
CD4+ T cell population could be found, as
exemplified in Fig. 1
B.
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Expansion of the CD4+ CTL subset in chronic viral infections
We compared the levels of perforin+
CD4+ T cells in healthy donors with levels in
groups of HIV-infected patients at various stages of the disease as
well as with those in EBV-infected individuals. HIV-infected
individuals exhibited significantly higher numbers of
perforin-expressing CD4+ T cells (Fig. 3
). This increase appeared early in the
disease process, even at the earliest stages of primary HIV-1
infection, while
CD4+perforin+ T cells
reached higher numbers in chronically infected patients. A trend toward
lower CD4+perforin+ T cell
numbers was observed in treated chronic HIV-infected patients and
nonprogressors with good viral control compared with untreated, chronic
HIV-infected patients (Fig. 3
). However, in both cases, levels were
significantly higher than those in healthy controls
(p < 0.001). An increase in the size of this
population was not restricted to HIV infection, as it was also seen in
individuals with acute EBV infection; however, the increase was less
marked (Fig. 3
). A similar phenotype was observed regardless of whether
the cells were from healthy or HIV-infected donors and was essentially
independent of disease stage or therapeutic intervention. In the case
of those subjects studied in the first 2 wk of symptomatic primary
HIV-1 infection, the phenotype was consistent with that described
previously, except that these cells coexpressed higher levels of CD38
and Ki67, indicative of recent activation and proliferation (data not
shown).
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Following stimulation with the superantigen SEB or PMA/ionomycin,
CD4+/perforin+ T cells
produced the effector cytokines TNF-
and IFN-
. In contrast, the
expression of IL-2 was limited to perforin-negative cells (Fig. 4
A).
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families to targets expressing HLA class II molecules,
we were able to demonstrate ex vivo target cell killing by
CD4+ T cells positively selected from PBMC of a
donor exhibiting 19.3% CD4+
perforin+ T cells reacting to SEB (Fig. 4
CD4+ cytotoxic T cells (identified according to
CD28 expression) displayed lower proliferative potential compared with
the other CD4+ T cells. Although both subsets of
CD4+ T cells were activated, displaying clear
up-regulation of CD69 within 6 h of stimulation by immobilized
anti-CD3 Ab or SEB (Fig. 4
D), only the
CD4+/CD28+ T cell subset
was able to undergo cell division (Fig. 4
E). The
CD4+ CD28- population,
which included all the
CD4+/perforin+ cells,
exhibited little or no proliferation in response to either stimuli
despite expressing the activation marker CD69. In fact, in this assay
the CD4+/CD28- T cell
number appeared to decrease over time following activation, suggesting
that these cells underwent activation-induced cell death following
stimulation.
CD4+ perforin+ T cells represent a subset of Ag-experienced cells
When the TCR repertoire was examined by flow cytometry, perforin
expression was restricted to a limited number of
CD4+ V
subfamilies, e.g., V
2 (Fig. 5
A), indicating that
CD4+ CTLs represent a population of expanded
cells. The full range of the antigenic specificity of this population
remains undefined. However, CMV-responsive cells, detected by means of
IFN-
intracellular staining following stimulation with a CMV lysate,
were found within but represented only a fraction of this population
(Fig. 5
BD). Conversely, in each individual tested, the
CMV-specific CD4+ perforin+
cells represented only a fraction of the total
CD4+ population that responded to CMV in cytokine
secretion assays (082%). The sizes of both fractions varied between
donors. On occasion, HIV-infected individuals demonstrated
CD4+ perforin+ T cells
reacting to HIV Ags (p24 whole protein) by cytokine secretion, but this
number was generally much smaller than of CMV-specific
CD4+ CTLs (data not shown).
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| Discussion |
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production and proliferative capacity
often observed in the study of Ag-specific CD4+ T
cells (33).
Expansions of CD4+ CTLs appear to be related to
chronic virus infections, such as HIV-1, EBV, and CMV infections. The
presence of similar cells has also been reported in a subset of
patients diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis (9). Taken
together these observations suggest that the presence of such cells may
be associated with general inflammatory conditions. Under certain
chronic inflammatory conditions, increasing numbers of
CD4+ T cells may undergo progressive
differentiation, during which cells lose expression of the
costimulatory molecules CD28 and CD27 and gain expression of
intracellular cytotoxic granules and perforin, as observed with
CD8+ T cells (31, 32). A model for
this pathway of differentiation is shown in Fig. 6
. Although these cells are present in
increased numbers at all stages of HIV infection, the initial expansion
of this subset occurs very early in the infection, as indicated by the
increased level of CD38 and Ki-67 during this period. The expansion of
this subset occurs concurrently with the increase in
CD28-/CD27-
CD8+ T cell numbers that is characteristic of HIV
infection (33). One possible explanation for the increase
in CD4+ CTL numbers is that the same factors that
drive CD8+ T cell differentiation drive the
increase in this CD4+
perforin+ T cell subset. One candidate for this
would be IL-15, which is known to increase CD8+ T
proliferation and differentiation and which is present at abnormally
elevated levels in several pathologies, including rheumatoid arthritis
and HIV infection (34). Preliminary experiments have shown
that short-term (24- to 40-h) incubation with IL-15 increases the
proportion of CD4+ T cells expressing the
cytotoxic granule protein (GMP-17) and perforin in PBMC from both
healthy and HIV-infected donors (J. J. Zaunders, unpublished
observations). Once produced, these cells, despite their limited
proliferative capacity, may be long-lived
(Bcl-2high) cells with very low turnover
(Ki-67-).
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| Acknowledgments |
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| Footnotes |
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2 Address correspondence and reprint requests to Dr. Victor Appay, Medical Research Council Human Immunology Unit, Institute of Molecular Medicine, John Radcliffe Hospital, Headington, Oxford, U.K. OX3 9DS. E-mail address: vappay{at}gwmail.jr2.ox.ac.uk ![]()
3 V.A. and J.J.Z. contributed equally to this work. ![]()
4 Abbreviations used in this paper: SEB, staphylococcal enterotoxin B; CMA, concanamycin A. ![]()
Received for publication February 15, 2002. Accepted for publication April 1, 2002.
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