Human CD8+ and CD4+ T lymphocyte memory to influenza A viruses of swine and avian species
UMass Chan Affiliations
Center for Infectious Disease and Vaccine ResearchProgram in Immunology and Virology
Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences
Document Type
Journal ArticlePublication Date
1999-06-08Keywords
Animals; CD4-Positive T-Lymphocytes; CD8-Positive T-Lymphocytes; Cell Line; Chickens; Cytotoxicity, Immunologic; Ducks; Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assay; Humans; Influenza A virus; Leukocytes, Mononuclear; Peptides; Point Mutation; Stem Cells; SwineLife Sciences
Medicine and Health Sciences
Metadata
Show full item recordAbstract
Recently, an avian influenza A virus (A/Hong Kong/156/97, H5N1) was isolated from a young child who had a fatal influenza illness. All eight RNA segments were of avian origin. The H5 hemagglutinin is not recognized by neutralizing Abs present in humans as a result of infection with the human H1, H2, or H3 subtypes of influenza A viruses. Subsequently, five other deaths and several more human infections in Hong Kong were associated with this avian-derived virus. We investigated whether influenza A-specific human CD8+ and CD4+ T lymphocytes would recognize epitopes on influenza A virus strains derived from swine or avian species, including the 1997 H5N1 Hong Kong virus strains. Our results demonstrate that adults living in an urban area of the U.S. possess influenza A cross-serotype reactive CD8+ and CD4+ CTL that recognize multiple epitopes on influenza A viruses of other species. Bulk culture cytotoxicity was demonstrated against avian and human influenza A viruses. Enzyme-linked immunospot assays detected precursor CTL specific for both human CTL epitopes and the corresponding A/HK/97 viral sequences. We hypothesize that these cross-reactive CTL might provide partial protection to humans against novel influenza A virus strains introduced into humans from other species.Source
J Immunol. 1999 Jun 15;162(12):7578-83.