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Is IL-7 from dendritic cells essential for the homeostasis of CD4+ T cells?

Nature Immunology volume 11, pages 547–548 (2010)Cite this article

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In an article published in the February 2009 issue of Nature Immunology1, Guimond et al. offered an interesting explanation for the slower interleukin 7 (IL-7)-driven homeostatic proliferation of naive CD4+ T cells than of CD8+ T cells1,2. Guimond et al. concluded that CD4+ T cells can respond efficiently only to IL-7 expressed by dendritic cells but not to IL-7 expressed by stromal cells, which are the main IL-7 producers3,4. As direct evidence of their hypothesis, Guimond et al. showed that polyclonal CD4+ T cells and CD4+ T cells transgenic for the Marilyn T cell antigen receptor (TCR) proliferated abundantly in bone marrow chimeras in which IL-7 was expressed only by bone marrow–derived cells (IL-7-deficient (Il7−/−) hosts given bone marrow from mice deficient in recombination-activating gene 1 (Rag1−/−)).

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Figure 1: Homeostatic proliferation of naive CD4+ T cells in lymphopenic hosts.

References

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Immunology and Microbial Science, The Scripps Research Institute, La Jolla, California, USA

    Christopher E Martin, David M Kim & Charles D Surh

  2. Garvan Institute of Medical Research, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia

    Jonathan Sprent

  3. World Class University–Integrative Biosciences and Biotechnology Program, Pohang University of Science and Technology, Pohang, Korea

    Jonathan Sprent & Charles D Surh

Authors
  1. Christopher E Martin
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  2. David M Kim
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  3. Jonathan Sprent
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  4. Charles D Surh
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Charles D Surh.

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The authors declare no competing financial interests.

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Supplementary Text and Figures

Supplementary Figure 1 Homeostatic proliferation of polyclonal B6.Thy-1.1+ CD8+ and CD4+ T cells and Thy-1.1+ SMARTA.Rag1−/− TCR transgenic CD4+ T cells in indicated hosts analyzed 1 wk after adoptive transfer. (PDF 81 kb)

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Martin, C., Kim, D., Sprent, J. et al. Is IL-7 from dendritic cells essential for the homeostasis of CD4+ T cells?. Nat Immunol 11, 547–548 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1038/ni0710-547

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