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Defining 'T cell exhaustion'
- Source :
- Nat Rev Immunol, Nature reviews. Immunology, vol. 19, no. 11, pp. 665-674, Nature Reviews Immunology
- Publication Year :
- 2019
-
Abstract
- 'T cell exhaustion' is a broad term that has been used to describe the response of T cells to chronic antigen stimulation, first in the setting of chronic viral infection but more recently in response to tumours. Understanding the features of and pathways to exhaustion has crucial implications for the success of checkpoint blockade and adoptive T cell transfer therapies. In this Viewpoint article, 18 experts in the field tell us what exhaustion means to them, ranging from complete lack of effector function to altered functionality to prevent immunopathology, with potential differences between cancer and chronic infection. Their responses highlight the dichotomy between terminally differentiated exhausted T cells that are TCF1 - and the self-renewing TCF1 + population from which they derive. These TCF1 + cells are considered by some to have stem cell-like properties akin to memory T cell populations, but the developmental relationships are unclear at present. Recent studies have also highlighted an important role for the transcriptional regulator TOX in driving the epigenetic enforcement of exhaustion, but key questions remain about the potential to reverse the epigenetic programme of exhaustion and how this might affect the persistence of T cell populations.
- Subjects :
- 0301 basic medicine
History
T cell
medicine.medical_treatment
T-Lymphocytes
Population
Programmed Cell Death 1 Receptor
Biology
medicine.disease_cause
Infections
Article
Education
Autoimmunity
03 medical and health sciences
0302 clinical medicine
Neoplasms
medicine
Animals
Humans
Epigenetics
Hepatocyte Nuclear Factor 1-alpha
education
education.field_of_study
Effector
High Mobility Group Proteins
Immunotherapy
3. Good health
Computer Science Applications
Chronic infection
030104 developmental biology
medicine.anatomical_structure
Immunology
Memory T cell
030215 immunology
Subjects
Details
- ISSN :
- 14741741
- Volume :
- 19
- Issue :
- 11
- Database :
- OpenAIRE
- Journal :
- Nature reviews. Immunology
- Accession number :
- edsair.doi.dedup.....369ccb4fe5a58ae1653c78fa64943e41