2. Academic Validation
  3. The CD8α-PILRα interaction maintains CD8+ T cell quiescence

The CD8α-PILRα interaction maintains CD8+ T cell quiescence

  • Science. 2022 May 27;376(6596):996-1001. doi: 10.1126/science.aaz8658.
Linghua Zheng 1,  Xue Han 1,  Sheng Yao 1,  Yuwen Zhu 1,  John Klement 2,  Shirley Wu 2,  Lan Ji 1,  Gefeng Zhu 1,  Xiaoxiao Cheng 1,  Zuzana Tobiasova 1,  Weiwei Yu 1,  Baozhu Huang 1,  Matthew D Vesely 1,  Jun Wang 1,  Jianping Zhang 1,  Edward Quinlan 1,  Lieping Chen 1
Affiliations

Affiliations

  • 1 Department of Immunobiology, Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, CT, USA.
  • 2 Yale College, Yale University, New Haven, CT, USA.
PMID: 35617401 DOI: 10.1126/science.aaz8658
Abstract

T cell quiescence is essential for maintaining a broad repertoire against a large pool of diverse antigens from microbes and tumors, but the underlying molecular mechanisms remain largely unknown. We show here that CD8α is critical for the maintenance of CD8+ T cells in a physiologically quiescent state in peripheral lymphoid organs. Upon inducible deletion of CD8α, both naïve and memory CD8+ T cells spontaneously acquired activation phenotypes and subsequently died without exposure to specific antigens. PILRα was identified as a ligand for CD8α in both mice and humans, and disruption of this interaction was able to break CD8+ T cell quiescence. Thus, peripheral T cell pool size is actively maintained by the CD8α-PILRα interaction in the absence of antigen exposure.

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