Development of innate T cells in the thymus under infectious/inflammatory systemic conditions

BAEZ NS.; CONSTANZA SAVID FRONTERA; CERBAN F; XIMENA VOLPINI; CRISTINA MOTRAN; M CECILIA RODRIGUEZ GALAN

Congreso; REUNIÓN DE LA SOCIEDAD ARGENTINA DE INMUNOLOGÍA; 2017

Our previous work demonstrated that during the acute stage of certain infections with a strong Th1 component (Trypanosoma cruzi or Candida albicans), SP CD8 thymocytes alter their differentiation from ?conventional? to ?innate? lineage. Innate CD8+ cells express a particular phenotype (CD44hi CD122hi EOMEShi), produce high levels of IFN and have high cytotoxic activity. The switch in the SP CD8 lineage occurs by the inflammatory process since we obtained similar data when we induced systemic expression of IL-12 and IL-18 by hydrodynamic injection of their cDNAs. The aim of our work is to determinate the stage at which innate CD8+ T cells develop in the thymus and the molecular mechanisms that are involved in this differentiation. Our data demonstrate that the innate phenotype give rise as early as the double positive (DP) stage since when we co-cultured DP or SP CD8 CD45.1+ control thymocytes with CD45.2+ T. cruzi-infected thymocytes we observed that CD45.1+ cells adopt the mentioned innate features (p