Understanding the Role of Dendritic Cell Subsets in the Generation of a CD8+ T Cell Response Following Pulmonary Vaccinia Viral Infection

Abstract

Unlike many other tissues, the lung is constantly assaulted with foreign antigens, both environmental and infectious. This includes a large number of viruses which spread via aerosolized droplets. In order for the body to mount an adaptive immune response to a pathogen, T cells circulating through lymph nodes (LN) must be alerted to the presence of infection in the periphery. This occurs as a result of presentation of pathogen derived epitopes on professional antigen presenting cells (APC), primarily dendritic cells (DC). While an important role for dendritic cells (DC) as the activators of naive T cells is clear, the contribution of distinct DC subsets in this process is less understood. Multiple DC subsets are present within the lung tissue (CD103+ DC and CD11b+ DC) and draining lymph nodes (MLN) (CD8α+), and as such, all are potential regulators of T cell activation (for review see1,2). These studies sought to understand how DC subsets contribute to the generation of virus-specific CD8+ T cells following pulmonary viral infection.