技术资料

Histone deacetylase inhibitors (HdI) could potentially improve the differentiation of leukemic dendritic cells (DC). Therefore,bone marrow samples from 100 children with acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) were cultured in the cytokines TNF-alpha,GM-CSF,c-kit ligand,and fetal liver tyrosine kinase 3 ligand,with or without IL-3 and -4 and after administration of HdI valproic acid (VAL),suberoylanilide hydroxamic acid (SAHA),isobutyramid,or trichostatin A. Among the tested samples,25 were positive for the chromosomal translocation t(12;21),encoding the fusion gene translocation ETS-like leukemia/acute myeloid leukemia 1 (TEL/AML1). SAHA increased CD83 expression of TEL/AML1-positive blasts in conditions without ILs,and SAHA and VAL increased the number of CD86(+)80(-) cells in the presence of ILs. VAL and isobutyramid supported the allostimulatory capacities of TEL/AML1-positive,leukemic DC; VAL and SAHA reduced those of TEL/AML1-negative DC. Cytotoxic T cells sensitized with leukemic DC produced more IFN-gamma and TNF-alpha upon presentation of the TEL/AML1 peptide. They also induced the cytotoxic lysis of nondifferentiated blasts,which was enhanced when TEL/AML1-positive DC had developed after addition of VAL or SAHA. Therefore,the use of HdI in the differentiation of leukemic DC from patients with TEL/AML1-positive ALL is recommended. View Publication

Kv1.3 potassium channels maintain the membrane potential of effector memory (T(EM)) T cells that are important mediators of multiple sclerosis,type 1 diabetes mellitus,and rheumatoid arthritis. The polypeptide ShK-170 (ShK-L5),containing an N-terminal phosphotyrosine extension of the Stichodactyla helianthus ShK toxin,is a potent and selective blocker of these channels. However,a stability study of ShK-170 showed minor pH-related hydrolysis and oxidation byproducts that were exacerbated by increasing temperatures. We therefore engineered a series of analogs to minimize the formation of these byproducts. The analog with the greatest stability,ShK-192,contains a nonhydrolyzable phosphotyrosine surrogate,a methionine isostere,and a C-terminal amide. ShK-192 shows the same overall fold as ShK,and there is no evidence of any interaction between the N-terminal adduct and the rest of the peptide. The docking configuration of ShK-192 in Kv1.3 shows the N-terminal para-phosphonophenylalanine group lying at the junction of two channel monomers to form a salt bridge with Lys(411) of the channel. ShK-192 blocks Kv1.3 with an IC(50) of 140 pM and exhibits greater than 100-fold selectivity over closely related channels. After a single subcutaneous injection of 100 microg/kg,approximately 100 to 200 pM concentrations of active peptide is detectable in the blood of Lewis rats 24,48,and 72 h after the injection. ShK-192 effectively inhibits the proliferation of T(EM) cells and suppresses delayed type hypersensitivity when administered at 10 or 100 microg/kg by subcutaneous injection once daily. ShK-192 has potential as a therapeutic for autoimmune diseases mediated by T(EM) cells. View Publication

The CD31(+) subset of human naive CD4(+) T cells is thought to contain the population of cells that have recently emigrated from the thymus,while their CD31(-) counterparts have been proposed to originate from CD31(+) cells after homeostatic cell division. Naive T-cell maintenance is known to involve homeostatic cytokines such as interleukin-7 (IL-7). It remains to be investigated what role this cytokine has in the homeostasis of naive CD4(+) T-cell subsets defined by CD31 expression. We provide evidence that IL-7 exerts a preferential proliferative effect on CD31(+) naive CD4(+) T cells from adult peripheral blood compared with the CD31(-) subset. IL-7-driven proliferation did not result in loss of CD31 expression,suggesting that CD31(+) naive CD4(+) T cells can undergo cytokine-driven homeostatic proliferation while preserving CD31. Furthermore,IL-7 sustained or increased CD31 expression even in nonproliferating cells. Both proliferation and CD31 maintenance were dependent on the activation of phosphoinositide 3-kinase (PI3K) signaling. Taken together,our data suggest that during adulthood CD31(+) naive CD4(+) T cells are maintained by IL-7 and that IL-7-based therapies may exert a preferential effect on this population. View Publication

During persistent murine cytomegalovirus (MCMV) infection,the T cell response is maintained at extremely high intensity for the life of the host. These cells closely resemble human CMV-specific cells,which compose a major component of the peripheral T cell compartment in most people. Despite a phenotype that suggests extensive antigen-driven differentiation,MCMV-specific T cells remain functional and respond vigorously to viral challenge. We hypothesized that a low rate of antigen-driven proliferation would account for the maintenance of this population. Instead,we found that most of these cells divided only sporadically in chronically infected hosts and had a short half-life in circulation. The overall population was supported,at least in part,by memory T cells primed early in infection,as well as by recruitment of naive T cells at late times. Thus,these data show that memory inflation is maintained by a continuous replacement of short-lived,functional cells during chronic MCMV infection. View Publication

Decay-accelerating factor (DAF) is a cell surface regulator that accelerates the dissociation of C3/C5 convertases and thereby prevents the amplification of complement activation on self cells. In the context of transplantation,DAF has been thought to primarily regulate antibody-mediated allograft injury,which is in part serum complement-dependent. Based on our previously delineated link between DAF and CD4 T cell responses,we evaluated the effects of donor Daf1 (the murine homolog of human DAF) deficiency on CD8 T cell-mediated cardiac allograft rejection. MHC-disparate Daf1(-/-) allografts were rejected with accelerated kinetics compared with wild-type grafts. The accelerated rejection predominantly tracked with DAF's absence on bone marrow-derived cells in the graft and required allograft production of C3. Transplantation of Daf1(-/-) hearts into wild-type allogeneic hosts augmented the strength of the anti-donor (direct pathway) T cell response,in part through complement-dependent proliferative and pro-survival effects on alloreactive CD8 T cells. The accelerated allograft rejection of Daf1(-/-) hearts occurred in recipients lacking anti-donor Abs. The results reveal that donor DAF expression,by controlling local complement activation on interacting T cell APC partners,regulates the strength of the direct alloreactive CD8(+) T cell response. The findings provide new insights into links between innate and adaptive immunity that could be exploited to limit T cell-mediated injury to an allograft following transplantation. View Publication

We report a system for Cre-regulated expression of RNA interference in vivo. Expression cassettes comprise selectable and FACS-sortable markers in tandem with additional marker genes and shRNAs in the antisense orientation. The cassettes are flanked by tandem LoxP sites arranged so that Cre expression inverts the marker-shRNA construct,allowing its regulated expression (and,at the same time,deletes the original selection/marker genes). The cassettes can be incorporated into retroviral or lentiviral vectors and delivered to cells in culture or used to generate transgenic mice. We describe cassettes incorporating various combinations of reporter genes,miRNA-based RNAi (including two shRNA constructs at once),and oncogenes and demonstrate the delivery of effective RNA interference in cells in culture,efficient transduction into hematopoietic stem cells with cell-type-specific knockdown in their progeny,and rapid generation of regulated shRNA knockdown in transgenic mice. These vector systems allow regulated combinatorial manipulation (both overexpression and loss of function) of gene expression in multiple systems in vitro and in vivo. View Publication

The mutagenic enzyme activation-induced cytidine deaminase (AID) is required for immunoglobulin class switch recombination (CSR) and somatic hypermutation (SHM) in germinal center (GC) B cells. Deregulated expression of AID is associated with various B-cell malignancies and,currently,it remains unclear how AID activity is extinguished to avoid illegitimate mutations. AID has also been shown to be alternatively spliced in malignant B cells,and there is limited evidence that this also occurs in normal blood B cells. The functional significance of these splice variants remains unknown. Here we show that normal GC human B cells and blood memory B cells similarly express AID splice variants and show for the first time that AID splicing variants are singly expressed in individual normal B cells as well as malignant B cells from chronic lymphocytic leukemia patients. We further demonstrate that the alternative AID splice variants display different activities ranging from inactivation of CSR to inactivation or heightened SHM activity. Our data therefore suggest that CSR and SHM are differentially switched off by varying the expression of splicing products of AID at the individual cell level. Most importantly,our findings suggest a novel tumor suppression mechanism by which unnecessary AID mutagenic activities are promptly contained for GC B cells. View Publication

Umbilical cord blood (UCB) is increasingly being used for human hematopoietic stem cell (HSC) transplantation in children but often requires pooling multiple cords to obtain sufficient numbers for transplantation in adults. To overcome this limitation,we have used an ex vivo two-week culture system to expand the number of hematopoietic CD34(+) cells in cord blood. To assess the in vivo function of these expanded CD34(+) cells,cultured human UCB containing 1 x 10(6) CD34(+) cells were transplanted into conditioned NOD-scid IL2rgamma(null) mice. The expanded CD34(+) cells displayed short- and long-term repopulating cell activity. The cultured human cells differentiated into myeloid,B-lymphoid,and erythroid lineages,but not T lymphocytes. Administration of human recombinant TNFalpha to recipient mice immediately prior to transplantation promoted human thymocyte and T-cell development. These T cells proliferated vigorously in response to TCR cross-linking by anti-CD3 antibody. Engrafted TNFalpha-treated mice generated antibodies in response to T-dependent and T-independent immunization,which was enhanced when mice were co-treated with the B cell cytokine BLyS. Ex vivo expanded CD34(+) human UCB cells have the capacity to generate multiple hematopoietic lineages and a functional human immune system upon transplantation into TNFalpha-treated NOD-scid IL2rgamma(null) mice. View Publication

Understanding the cellular mechanisms that ensure an appropriate innate immune response against viral pathogens is an important challenge of biomedical research. In vitro studies have shown that natural killer (NK) cells purified from healthy donors can kill heterologous cell lines or autologous CD4+ T cell blasts exogenously infected with several strains of HIV-1. However,it is not known whether the deleterious effects of high HIV-1 viremia interferes with the NK cell-mediated cytolysis of autologous,endogenously HIV-1-infected CD4+ T cells. Here,we stimulate primary CD4+ T cells,purified ex vivo from HIV-1-infected viremic patients,with PHA and rIL2 (with or without rIL-7). This experimental procedure allows for the significant expansion and isolation of endogenously infected CD4+ T cell blasts detected by intracellular staining of p24 HIV-1 core antigen. We show that,subsequent to the selective down-modulation of MHC class-I (MHC-I) molecules,HIV-1-infected p24(pos) blasts become partially susceptible to lysis by rIL-2-activated NK cells,while uninfected p24(neg) blasts are spared from killing. This NK cell-mediated killing occurs mainly through the NKG2D activation pathway. However,the degree of NK cell cytolytic activity against autologous,endogenously HIV-1-infected CD4+ T cell blasts that down-modulate HLA-A and -B alleles and against heterologous MHC-I(neg) cell lines is particularly low. This phenomenon is associated with the defective surface expression and engagement of natural cytotoxicity receptors (NCRs) and with the high frequency of the anergic CD56(neg)/CD16(pos) subsets of highly dysfunctional NK cells from HIV-1-infected viremic patients. Collectively,our data demonstrate that the chronic viral replication of HIV-1 in infected individuals results in several phenotypic and functional aberrancies that interfere with the NK cell-mediated killing of autologous p24(pos) blasts derived from primary T cells. View Publication

Our recent studies have shown that immune cell-produced complement provides costimulatory and survival signals to naive CD4(+) T cells. Whether these signals are similarly required during effector cell expansion and what molecular pathways link locally produced complement to T-cell survival were not clarified. To address this,we stimulated monoclonal and polyclonal T cells in vitro and in vivo with antigen-presenting cells (APCs) deficient in the complement regulatory protein,decay accelerating factor (DAF),and/or the complement component C3. We found that T-cell expansion induced by DAF-deficient APCs was augmented with diminished T-cell apoptosis,whereas T-cell expansion induced by C3(-/-) APCs was reduced because of enhanced T-cell apoptosis. These effects were traced to locally produced C5a,which through binding to T cell-expressed C5aR,enhanced expression of Bcl-2 and prevented Fas up-regulation. The results show that C5aR signal transduction in T cells is important to allow optimal T-cell expansion,as well as to maintain naive cell viability,and does so by suppressing programmed cell death. View Publication

The dynamic interplay between dendritic cells (DCs) and human immunodeficiency virus type-1 (HIV-1) is thought to result in viral dissemination and evasion of antiviral immunity. Although initial observations suggested that the C-type lectin receptor (CLR) DC-SIGN was responsible for the trans-infection function of the virus,subsequent studies demonstrated that trans-infection of CD4(+) T cells with HIV-1 can also occur through DC-SIGN-independent mechanisms. We demonstrate that a cell surface molecule designated DCIR (for DC immunoreceptor),a member of a recently described family of DC-expressing CLRs,can participate in the capture of HIV-1 and promote infection in trans and in cis of autologous CD4(+) T cells from human immature monocyte-derived DCs. The contribution of DCIR to these processes was revealed using DCIR-specific siRNAs and a polyclonal antibody specific for the carbohydrate recognition domain of DCIR. Data from transfection experiments indicated that DCIR acts as a ligand for HIV-1 and is involved in events leading to productive virus infection. Finally,we show that the neck domain of DCIR is important for the DCIR-mediated effect on virus binding and infection. These results point to a possible role for DCIR in HIV-1 pathogenesis by supporting the productive infection of DCs and promoting virus propagation. View Publication

B lymphocyte stimulator (BLyS) is a well-known direct costimulator of adaptive immune cells,particularly B lineage cells. However,we have reported recently that BLyS is also able to activate monocytes. Other innate immune cells,such as dendritic cells (DCs),play a key role in the initiation of adaptive immune responses and the purpose of the current study was to assess whether there is a direct role for BLyS in modulating human DC functions. In this study,we show that BLyS induces DC activation and maturation. Thus,BLyS strongly induced up-regulation of surface costimulatory molecule expression and secretion of specific cytokines and chemokines in DCs. BLyS-stimulated DCs (BLyS-DCs) were also able to augment allogeneic CD4 T cell proliferation to a greater extent than control DCs. BLyS-DCs secreted elevated levels of the major Th1-polarizing cytokine,IL-12p70,and they promoted naive CD4 T cell differentiation into Th1 T cells. Regarding BLyS receptor expression,DCs primarily express cytoplasmic transmembrane activator and CAML interactor; however,low levels of cell surface transmembrane activator and CAML interactor are expressed as well. Collectively,our data suggest that BLyS may modulate adaptive immune cells indirectly by inducing DC maturation. View Publication