Cutting edge: Rapamycin augments pathogen-specific but not graft-reactive CD8+ T cell responses.

Journal article

Recent evidence demonstrating that exposure to rapamycin during viral infection increased the quantity and quality of Ag-specific T cells poses an intriguing paradox, because rapamycin is used in transplantation to dampen, rather than enhance, donor-reactive T cell responses. In this report, we compared the effects of rapamycin on the Ag-specific T cell response to a bacterial infection versus a transplant. Using a transgenic system in which the Ag and the responding T cell population were identical in both cases, we observed that treatment with rapamycin augmented the Ag-specific T cell response to a pathogen, whereas it failed to do so when the Ag was presented in the context of a transplant. These results suggest that the environment in which an Ag is presented alters the influence of rapamycin on Ag-specific T cell expansion and highlights a fundamental difference between Ag presented by an infectious agent as compared with an allograft.

Authors: Ferrer, I; Wagener, M; Robertson, J; Turner, A; Araki, K

• Journal: Journal of Immunology
• Volume: 185
• Issue: 4
• Pages: 2004-2008
• Publication date: 2010-08-01
• DOI: 10.4049/jimmunol.1001176
• EISSN: 1550-6606
• ISSN: 0022-1767
• Language: English
• Keywords: Male; Mice; Adoptive Transfer; Animals; Listeria monocytogenes; Skin Transplantation; Sirolimus; Immunosuppressive Agents; Mice, Transgenic; Mice, Inbred C57BL; L-Selectin; Interferon-gamma; Female; Spleen; T-Lymphocytes; Flow Cytometry; Listeriosis; CD8-Positive T-Lymphocytes