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Comparative Study
. 2005 Aug 1;175(3):1566-74.
doi: 10.4049/jimmunol.175.3.1566.

CD25-expressing CD8+ T cells are potent memory cells in old age

Dietmar Herndler-Brandstetter  1 , Susanne Schwaiger, Ellen Veel, Christine Fehrer, Daniel P Cioca, Giovanni Almanzar, Michael Keller, Gerald Pfister, Walther Parson, Reinhard Würzner, Diether Schönitzer, Sian M Henson, Richard Aspinall, Günter Lepperdinger, Beatrix Grubeck-Loebenstein
Affiliations
Comparative Study

CD25-expressing CD8+ T cells are potent memory cells in old age

Dietmar Herndler-Brandstetter et al. J Immunol. .

Abstract

We have recently described an IL-2/IL-4-producing CD8+CD25+ non-regulatory memory T cell population that occurs in a subgroup of healthy elderly persons who characteristically still have a good humoral response after vaccination. The present study addresses this specific T cell subset and investigates its origin, clonal composition, Ag specificity, and replicative history. We demonstrate that CD8+CD25+ memory T cells frequently exhibit a CD4+CD8+ double-positive phenotype. The expression of the CD8 alphabeta molecule and the occurrence of signal-joint TCR rearrangement excision circles suggest a thymic origin of these cells. They also have longer telomeres than their CD8+CD25- memory counterparts, thus indicating a shorter replicative history. CD8+CD25+ memory T cells display a polyclonal TCR repertoire and respond to IL-2 as well as to a panel of different Ags, whereas the CD8+CD25- memory T cell population has a more restricted TCR diversity, responds to fewer Ags, and does not proliferate in response to stimulation with IL-2. Molecular tracking of specific clones with clonotypic primers reveals that the same clones occur in CD8+CD25+ and CD8+CD25- memory T cell populations, demonstrating a lineage relationship between CD25+ and CD25- memory CD8+ T cells. Our results suggest that CD25-expressing memory T cells represent an early stage in the differentiation of CD8+ cells. Accumulation of these cells in elderly persons appears to be a prerequisite of intact immune responsiveness in the absence of naive T cells in old age.

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