title: Competitive homing assays to study gut-tropic t cell migration.
abstract: In order to exert their function lymphocytes need to leave the blood and migrate into different tissues in the body. Lymphocyte adhesion to endothelial cells and tissue extravasation is a multistep process controlled by different adhesion molecules (homing receptors) expressed on lymphocytes and their respective ligands (addressions) displayed on endothelial cells (1 2). Even though the function of these adhesion receptors can be partially studied ex vivo, the ultimate test for their physiological relevance is to assess their role during in vivo lymphocyte adhesion and migration. Two complementary strategies have been used for this purpose: intravital microscopy (IVM) and homing experiments. Although IVM has been essential to define the precise contribution of specific adhesion receptors during the adhesion cascade in real time and in different tissues, IVM is time consuming and labor intensive, it often requires the development of sophisticated surgical techniques, it needs prior isolation of homogeneous cell populations and it permits the analysis of only one tissue/organ at any given time. By contrast, competitive homing experiments allow the direct and simultaneous comparison in the migration of two (or even more) cell subsets in the same mouse and they also permit the analysis of many tissues and of a high number of cells in the same experiment. Here we describe the classical competitive homing protocol used to determine the advantage/disadvantage of a given cell type to home to specific tissues as compared to a control cell population. We chose to illustrate the migratory properties of gut-tropic versus non gut-tropic T cells, because the intestinal mucosa is the largest body surface in contact with the external environment and it is also the extra-lymphoid tissue with the best-defined migratory requirements. Moreover, recent work has determined that the vitamin A metabolite all-trans retinoic acid (RA) is the main molecular mechanism responsible for inducing gut-specific adhesion receptors (integrin a4b7and chemokine receptor CCR9) on lymphocytes. Thus, we can readily generate large numbers of gut-tropic and non gut-tropic lymphocytes ex vivoby activating T cells in the presence or absence of RA, respectively, which can be finally used in the competitive homing experiments described here.
authors.affiliation: Gastrointestinal Unit, Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School, USA.
authors.forename: Eduardo J
authors.initials: EJ
authors.lastname: Villablanca
authors.forename: J Rodrigo
authors.initials: JR
authors.lastname: Mora
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D018929:Cell Culture Techniques; D002465:Cell Movement / Q000187:drug effects / Q000502:physiology*; D007413:Intestinal Mucosa / Q000187:drug effects / Q000502:physiology*; D008213:Lymphocyte Activation; D051379:Mice; D016201:Receptors, Lymphocyte Homing / Q000502:physiology; D013601:T-Lymphocytes / Q000187:drug effects / Q000502:physiology*; D014212:Tretinoin / Q000494:pharmacology
chemical_list: D016201:Receptors, Lymphocyte Homing; D014212:Tretinoin