TY - JOUR
T1 - Transcriptome analysis of mycobacteria-specific CD4+ T cells identified by activation-induced expression of CD154
AU - Kunnath-Velayudhan, Shajo
AU - Goldberg, Michael F.
AU - Saini, Neeraj K.
AU - Johndrow, Christopher T.
AU - Ng, Tony W.
AU - Johnson, Alison J.
AU - Xu, Jiayong
AU - Chan, John
AU - Jacobs, William R.
AU - Porcelli, Steven A.
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2017 by The American Association of Immunologists, Inc.
PY - 2017/10/1
Y1 - 2017/10/1
N2 - Analysis of Ag-specific CD4+ T cells in mycobacterial infections at the transcriptome level is informative but technically challenging. Although several methods exist for identifying Ag-specific T cells, including intracellular cytokine staining, cell surface cytokine-capture assays, and staining with peptide:MHC class II multimers, all of these have significant technical constraints that limit their usefulness. Measurement of activation-induced expression of CD154 has been reported to detect live Ag-specific CD4+ T cells, but this approach remains underexplored and, to our knowledge, has not previously been applied in mycobacteria-infected animals. In this article, we show that CD154 expression identifies adoptively transferred or endogenous Ag-specific CD4+ T cells induced by Mycobacterium bovis bacillus Calmette-Guérin vaccination. We confirmed that Ag-specific cytokine production was positively correlated with CD154 expression by CD4+ T cells from bacillus Calmette-Guérin-vaccinated mice and show that highquality microarrays can be performed from RNA isolated from CD154+ cells purified by cell sorting. Analysis of microarray data demonstrated that the transcriptome of CD4+ CD154+ cells was distinct from that of CD154- cells and showed major enrichment of transcripts encoding multiple cytokines and pathways of cellular activation. One notable finding was the identification of a previously unrecognized subset of mycobacteria-specific CD4+ T cells that is characterized by the production of IL-3. Our results support the use of CD154 expression as a practical and reliable method to isolate live Ag-specific CD4+ T cells for transcriptomic analysis and potentially for a range of other studies in infected or previously immunized hosts.
AB - Analysis of Ag-specific CD4+ T cells in mycobacterial infections at the transcriptome level is informative but technically challenging. Although several methods exist for identifying Ag-specific T cells, including intracellular cytokine staining, cell surface cytokine-capture assays, and staining with peptide:MHC class II multimers, all of these have significant technical constraints that limit their usefulness. Measurement of activation-induced expression of CD154 has been reported to detect live Ag-specific CD4+ T cells, but this approach remains underexplored and, to our knowledge, has not previously been applied in mycobacteria-infected animals. In this article, we show that CD154 expression identifies adoptively transferred or endogenous Ag-specific CD4+ T cells induced by Mycobacterium bovis bacillus Calmette-Guérin vaccination. We confirmed that Ag-specific cytokine production was positively correlated with CD154 expression by CD4+ T cells from bacillus Calmette-Guérin-vaccinated mice and show that highquality microarrays can be performed from RNA isolated from CD154+ cells purified by cell sorting. Analysis of microarray data demonstrated that the transcriptome of CD4+ CD154+ cells was distinct from that of CD154- cells and showed major enrichment of transcripts encoding multiple cytokines and pathways of cellular activation. One notable finding was the identification of a previously unrecognized subset of mycobacteria-specific CD4+ T cells that is characterized by the production of IL-3. Our results support the use of CD154 expression as a practical and reliable method to isolate live Ag-specific CD4+ T cells for transcriptomic analysis and potentially for a range of other studies in infected or previously immunized hosts.
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U2 - 10.4049/jimmunol.1700654
DO - 10.4049/jimmunol.1700654
M3 - Article
C2 - 28821584
AN - SCOPUS:85029712113
SN - 0022-1767
VL - 199
SP - 2596
EP - 2606
JO - Journal of Immunology
JF - Journal of Immunology
IS - 7
ER -