Chronic spinal cord injury impairs primary CD8 T cell antiviral immunity but does not affect generation or function of memory CD8 T cells.

Chronic spinal cord injury impairs primary CD8 T cell antiviral immunity but does not affect generation or function of memory CD8 T cells. Exp Neurol. 2019 Mar 20;: Authors: Norden DM, Qatanani A, Bethea JR, Jiang J Abstract Antiviral immunity is severely compromised following trauma to the central nervous system. In mice with chronic spinal cord injury (SCI), primary infection with influenza virus leads to high mortality rates due to impaired expansion of virus-specific CD8 T cells. One strategy to increase resistance to viral infections is to generate memory immune cells that protect from recurrent infections. However, it is unknown if chronic SCI also impairs secondary immune responses to influenza challenge as it does primary responses. Here, we used a mouse model of chronic SCI and a clinically relevant influenza A infection to investigate CD8 T cell response. As shown previously, chronic SCI mice had impaired primary antiviral responses with high mortality rates and decreased expansion of virus-specific CD8 T cells following intranasal infection. To investigate CD8 T cell memory, we used two strains of influenza A virus [PR8(H1N1) and X31(H3N2)] that share internal proteins but differ in surface antigens. Chronic SCI mice immunized with live X31 were able to generate memory CD8 T cells that secreted IFNγ upon stimulation with viral peptides ex vivo, which was comparable to immunized uninjured mice. Importantly, immunization pr...
Source: Experimental Neurology - Category: Neurology Authors: Tags: Exp Neurol Source Type: research