T Cells in Viral Infections

A special issue of Viruses (ISSN 1999-4915). This special issue belongs to the section "Viral Immunology, Vaccines, and Antivirals".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (15 October 2022) | Viewed by 10170

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Microbial Pathogenesis and Immunology Department, College of Medicine Faculty, Texas A&M University Health Science Center, Bryan, TX, USA
Interests: adaptive immunity and immunotherapy
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Dear Colleagues,

T cell-based therapy has shown great potential as a more powerful approach to treating numerous diseases, including cancers and infectious and autoimmune disorders by harnessing the body's immune system. It is anticipated that responses initiated by immunotherapeutic interventions would explicitly uncover a venue of discerningly suppressing the individual disease while maintaining the rest of the immune system functionally active. Increasing knowledge in cellular immunology and the host immune response has led to the exciting development of diverse immunotherapeutic modalities, including the blockade of immune checkpoints, induction of activation of CD8+ cytotoxic T lymphocytes (CTLs) or CD4+ regulatory T cells (Tregs), the use of non-specific immunosuppressive drugs with associated side effects (e.g., anti-CD3, CD20 or CD52 antibody), adoptive T-cell transfer (ACT)-based therapy, and modulation of the local environment including the tumor microenvironment (TME) and inflammatory microenvironment (IME) to facilitate T cell immunity (e.g., low-dose IL-2 treatment). Nevertheless, despite enormous advances in T cell-based therapy, the clinical efficacy and benefits remain less satisfactory due to a variety of factors that lessen anti-disease immunity, which include ex vivo T cell production, limited in vivo T cell expansion and persistence, auto antigen identification, generation of antigen-specific T cells, off-target complications, local environment, T cell trafficking to the local sites, etc. Effective strategies to bypassing these barriers should significantly improve T cell-based immunotherapy for various diseases and are thus urgently needed.

Prof. Dr. Song Jianxun
Guest Editor

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Keywords

  • virus
  • T cell
  • animal model
  • immunotherapy
  • viral latency
  • cell metabolism
  • immunomodulation
  • exhaustion
  • memory

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Published Papers (3 papers)

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Research

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12 pages, 2492 KiB  
Article
Expression of NAC1 Restrains the Memory Formation of CD8+ T Cells during Viral Infection
by Liqing Wang, Anil Kumar, Jugal Kishore Das, Yijie Ren, Hao-Yun Peng, Darby Jane Ballard, Xiaofang Xiong, Jacob Rance Davis, Xingcong Ren, Jin-Ming Yang and Jianxun Song
Viruses 2022, 14(8), 1713; https://doi.org/10.3390/v14081713 - 4 Aug 2022
Cited by 9 | Viewed by 2316
Abstract
Nucleus accumbens-associated protein 1 (NAC1) is a transcription co-factor that has been shown to possess multiple roles in stem cell and cancer biology. However, little is known about its roles in regulation of the immune system. In the current study, we observed that [...] Read more.
Nucleus accumbens-associated protein 1 (NAC1) is a transcription co-factor that has been shown to possess multiple roles in stem cell and cancer biology. However, little is known about its roles in regulation of the immune system. In the current study, we observed that expression of NAC1 impacted the survival of CD8+ T cells in vitro. NAC1−/− CD8+ T cells displayed lower metabolism, including reduced glycolysis and oxidative phosphorylation. In vivo, compared with wild-type (WT) mice, NAC1−/− mice produced a lower response to vaccinia virus (VACV) infection, and viral antigen (Ag)-specific CD8+ T cells decreased more slowly. Additionally, we observed that the NAC1−/− mice demonstrated a stronger memory formation of viral Ag-specific CD8+ T cells post-viral infection. Mechanically, we identified that compared with WT CD8+ T cells, the Interferon Regulatory Factor 4 (IRF4), a key transcription factor in T cell development, was highly expressed in NAC1−/− CD8+ T cells, insinuating that IRF4 could be a critical regulatory target of NAC1 in the memory formation of CD8+ T cells. Our results indicate that NAC1 restrains the memory formation of CD8+ T cells by modulating IRF4, and targeting NAC1 may be exploited as a new approach to boosting CD8+ T cell memory. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue T Cells in Viral Infections)
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Review

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26 pages, 2752 KiB  
Review
Understanding Immune Responses to Viruses—Do Underlying Th1/Th2 Cell Biases Predict Outcome?
by Faith H. N. Howard, Amy Kwan, Natalie Winder, Amina Mughal, Cristal Collado-Rojas and Munitta Muthana
Viruses 2022, 14(7), 1493; https://doi.org/10.3390/v14071493 - 8 Jul 2022
Cited by 25 | Viewed by 4260
Abstract
Emerging and re-emerging viral diseases have increased in number and geographical extent during the last decades. Examples include the current COVID-19 pandemic and the recent epidemics of the Chikungunya, Ebola, and Zika viruses. Immune responses to viruses have been well-characterised within the innate [...] Read more.
Emerging and re-emerging viral diseases have increased in number and geographical extent during the last decades. Examples include the current COVID-19 pandemic and the recent epidemics of the Chikungunya, Ebola, and Zika viruses. Immune responses to viruses have been well-characterised within the innate and adaptive immunity pathways with the outcome following viral infection predominantly attributed to properties of the virus and circumstances of the infection. Perhaps the belief that the immune system is often considered as a reactive component of host defence, springing into action when a threat is detected, has contributed to a poorer understanding of the inherent differences in an individual’s immune system in the absence of any pathology. In this review, we focus on how these host factors (age, ethnicity, underlying pathologies) may skew the T helper cell response, thereby influencing the outcome following viral infection but also whether we can use these inherent biases to predict patients at risk of a deviant response and apply strategies to avoid or overcome them. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue T Cells in Viral Infections)
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12 pages, 607 KiB  
Review
γδ T Cells in Emerging Viral Infection: An Overview
by Eleonora Cimini and Chiara Agrati
Viruses 2022, 14(6), 1166; https://doi.org/10.3390/v14061166 - 27 May 2022
Cited by 5 | Viewed by 2728
Abstract
New emerging viruses belonging to the Coronaviridae, Flaviviridae, and Filoviridae families are serious threats to public health and represent a global concern. The surveillance to monitor the emergence of new viruses and their transmission is an important target for public health [...] Read more.
New emerging viruses belonging to the Coronaviridae, Flaviviridae, and Filoviridae families are serious threats to public health and represent a global concern. The surveillance to monitor the emergence of new viruses and their transmission is an important target for public health authorities. Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) is an excellent example of a pathogen able to cause a pandemic. In a few months, SARS-CoV-2 has spread globally from China, and it has become a world health problem. Gammadelta (γδ) T cell are sentinels of innate immunity and are able to protect the host from viral infections. They enrich many tissues, such as the skin, intestines, and lungs where they can sense and fight the microbes, thus contributing to the protective immune response. γδ T cells perform their direct antiviral activity by cytolytic and non-cytolytic mechanisms against a wide range of viruses, and they are able to orchestrate the cellular interplay between innate and acquired immunity. For their pleiotropic features, γδ T cells have been proposed as a target for immunotherapies in both cancer and viral infections. In this review, we analyzed the role of γδ T cells in emerging viral infections to define the profile of the response and to better depict their role in the host protection. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue T Cells in Viral Infections)
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