title: Antigen-independent activation of resting T-cells in the liver of patients with chronic hepatitis.
abstract: Since the adult liver is an organ without constitutive lymphoid components, any intra-hepatic T cell found in chronic viral hepatitis should have compartmentalised to the liver after infection and inflammation. In liver biopsies from patients with chronic hepatitis C there is a great discrepancy between the percentage of activated T cells and the frequency of antigen-specific T cells. Usually, 40 to 80% of the liver-infiltrating T cells express activation markers, whereas only 0.5%, at best, of these cells are specific for any HCV protein. This finding suggests that there may be antigen independent mechanisms activating bystander T cells. We investigated whether human resting T cells could be activated to proliferate and display effector function in the absence of TcR occupancy. We have found that a combination of IL-2, TNF alpha and IL-6 could activate highly purified naive and memory T cells to proliferate. Under these conditions, resting memory T cells could also display effector function, as assessed by cytokine synthesis and help for IgG production by B cells. This novel antigen-independent pathway of T cell activation may play an important role in vivo in activating effector T cells in the liver and in maintaining the clonal size of peripheral memory T cells in the absence of antigenic stimulation.
authors.affiliation: Chiron/Vaccines, Siena, Italy.
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Abrignani
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D002478:Cells, Cultured; D006521:Hepatitis, Chronic / Q000276:immunology*; D006801:Humans; D007156:Immunologic Memory / Q000187:drug effects; D007376:Interleukin-2 / Q000494:pharmacology; D015850:Interleukin-6 / Q000494:pharmacology; D008099:Liver / Q000166:cytology / Q000276:immunology*; D008213:Lymphocyte Activation; D013601:T-Lymphocytes / Q000276:immunology*; D014409:Tumor Necrosis Factor-alpha / Q000494:pharmacology
chemical_list: D007376:Interleukin-2; D015850:Interleukin-6; D014409:Tumor Necrosis Factor-alpha