1. Academic Validation
  2. Time required for commitment to T cell proliferation depends on TCR affinity and cytokine response

Time required for commitment to T cell proliferation depends on TCR affinity and cytokine response

  • EMBO Rep. 2022 Nov 3;e54969. doi: 10.15252/embr.202254969.
Liang-Zhe Wu # 1 2 Renu Balyan # 1 2 Joanna Brzostek 1 2 Xiang Zhao 2 Nicholas R J Gascoigne 1 2
Affiliations

Affiliations

  • 1 Immunology Translational Research Programme, Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, National University of Singapore, Singapore, Singapore.
  • 2 Department of Microbiology and Immunology, Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, National University of Singapore, Singapore, Singapore.
  • # Contributed equally.
Abstract

T cell activation and effector functions are determined by the affinity of the interaction between T cell receptor (TCR) and its antigenic peptide MHC (pMHC) ligand. A better understanding of the quantitative aspects of TCR-pMHC affinity-dependent T cell activation is critical for the development of new immunotherapeutic strategies. However, the role of TCR-pMHC affinity in regulating the kinetics of CD8+ T cell commitment to proliferation and differentiation is unknown. Here, we show that the stronger the TCR-pMHC affinity, the shorter the time of T cell-APC co-culture required to commit CD8+ T cells to proliferation. The time threshold for T cell cytokine production is much lower than that for cell proliferation. There is a strong correlation between affinity-dependent differences in Akt phosphorylation and T cell proliferation. The cytokine IL-15 increases the poor proliferation of T cells stimulated with low affinity pMHC, suggesting that pro-inflammatory cytokines can override the affinity-dependent features of T cell proliferation.

Keywords

CTL; T cell activation; affinity; signaling.

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