0000000000086528

AUTHOR

Sina I. Schader

Insufficient Antigen Presentation Due to Viral Immune Evasion Explains Lethal Cytomegalovirus Organ Disease After Allogeneic Hematopoietic Cell Transplantation.

Reactivation of latent cytomegalovirus (CMV) poses a clinical problem in transiently immunocompromised recipients of hematopoietic cell (HC) transplantation (HCT) by viral histopathology that results in multiple organ manifestations. Compared to autologous HCT and to syngeneic HCT performed with identical twins as HC donor and recipient, lethal outcome of CMV infection is more frequent in allogeneic HCT with MHC/HLA or minor histocompatibility loci mismatch between donor and recipient. It is an open question if a graft-versus-host (GvH) reaction exacerbates CMV disease, or if CMV exacerbates GvH disease (GvHD), or if interference is mutual. Here we have used a mouse model of experimental HC…

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Thy-1 (CD90) regulates the extravasation of leukocytes during inflammation.

Human Thy-1 (CD90) has been shown to mediate adhesion of inflammatory cells to activated microvascular endothelial cells via interaction with Mac-1 (CD11b/CD18) in vitro. Since there are no data showing the physiological relevance of Thy-1 for the recruitment of inflammatory cells in vivo, different inflammation models were investigated in Thy-1-deficient mice and littermate controls. In thioglycollate-induced peritonitis, the number of neutrophils and monocytes was significantly diminished in Thy-1-deficient mice. During acute lung inflammation, the extravasation of eosinophils and monocytes into the lung was significantly reduced in Thy-1-deficient mice. Moreover, during chronic lung infl…

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Optimized recombinant dense bodies of human cytomegalovirus efficiently prime virus specific lymphocytes and neutralizing antibodies without the addition of adjuvant.

Control of human cytomegalovirus (HCMV) infection correlates with the reconstitution of antiviral T lymphocytes in haematopoietic stem cell transplant recipients. A vaccine to foster this reconstitution and to ameliorate the severe consequences of HCMV reactivation is yet unavailable. This work focused on providing a rationale for the amendment of the yields and the antigenic composition of a vaccine, based on subviral dense bodies (DB) of HCMV. Modified DB were generated that contained the HLA-A2 presented IE1 model peptide TMYGGISLL, integrated at different positions in the major DB protein pp65. Insertion at position W175 of pp65 allowed efficient formation of recDB in the cytoplasm of i…

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Antigen-presenting cells of haematopoietic origin prime cytomegalovirus-specific CD8 T-cells but are not sufficient for driving memory inflation during viral latency

Expansion of the CD8 T-cell memory pool, also known as ‘memory inflation’, for certain but not all viral epitopes in latently infected host tissues is a special feature of the immune response to cytomegalovirus. The Ld-presented murine cytomegalovirus (mCMV) immediate–early (IE) 1 peptide is the prototype of an epitope that is associated with memory inflation. Based on the detection of IE1 transcripts in latently infected lungs it was previously proposed that episodes of viral gene expression and antigenic activity due to desilencing of a limited number of viral genes may drive epitope-specific memory inflation. This would imply direct antigen presentation through latently infected host tis…

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