Tara M. Strutt
University of Central Florida, USA
Title: Regulation of acute inflammation by memory CD4 T cells during IAV infection
Biography
Biography: Tara M. Strutt
Abstract
It is generally accepted that the flow of immunologically relevant information during the early stages of responses against pathogens is one-way, - that inflammation induced upon pattern recognition by highly conserved receptors of the innate immune dramatically impacts subsequent antigen-specific T and B cell responses. We asked if the reverse occurs, and if cells of the adaptive immune system can influence the character and magnitude of innate inflammatory responses. We show here that resting, antigen-specific memory CD4 T cells can dramatically alter innate inflammatory responses within 36 hours of viral infection in a manner independent of other T cells and TLR signaling. Virus-specific memory CD4 T cells transferred to naïve mice that are then challenged with influenza induce greater expression of multiple inflammatory mediators both at the site of infection and systemically upon cognate recognition of antigen in an IFN-gindependent fashion. Our results show that the adaptive immune system can profoundly influence the character of inflammation following pathogen challenge, demonstrating a novel role for memory CD4 T cells in controlling virus titers during protective.