The new research provides an in-depth look at how a previously unknown immune cell group defends the lungs, opening the door for respiratory infection vaccines.
A team of La Jolla Institute for Immunology and University of Liverpool scientists have published the first comprehensive look at how a previously unknown immune cell group defends the lungs, opening the door for respiratory infection vaccines.
The study, led by LJI William K. Bowes Distinguished Professor Pandurangan Vijayanand, MD, PhD and published July 28 in Nature Immunology, shows that human lung tissue acts as a reservoir of sorts for a large number of tissue-resident memory T (TRM) cells.
This store of T cells is able to fight off a wide range of viruses, bacteria and deadly fungal pathogens but has remained largely hidden until now, residing only in the lungs – which means they don’t show up in blood samples – and not persisting in mice, the common model in preclinical research.
T cells are highly specific, specialized cells; each T cell responds to one disease marker, or antigen, unable to target different infections.
The lung’s TRM cells are even more specific, adapting to defend one kind of tissue; the LJI team is working to discover how TRM cells respond to infections in human lungs.Â
For this particular study, Vijayanand’s lab examined more than 87,000 lung TRM cells from 40 human study participants ages 61 to 83.
Employing cutting-edge sequencing and analysis work, the researchers found the large reservoir of T cells in lung samples were equipped to respond to pathogens from influenza type A virus, respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), SARS-CoV-2, Bordetella pertussis (the bacterium that causes whooping cough) and more.
The findings have implications for vaccine research, as this new analysis could guide the development of vaccines that boost TRM cell responses for more effective, durable protection against severe respiratory infections.
