Generalized Lévy walks and the role of chemokines in migration of effector CD8+ T cells.
Chemokines have a central role in regulating processes essential to the immune function of T cells, such as their migration within lymphoid tissues and targeting of pathogens in sites of inflammation. Here we track T cells using multi-photon microscopy to demonstrate that the chemokine CXCL10 enhances the ability of CD8+ T cells to control the pathogen Toxoplasma gondii in the brains of chronically infected mice. This chemokine boosts T-cell function in two different ways: it maintains the effector T-cell population in the brain and speeds up the average migration speed without changing the nature of the walk statistics. Notably, these statistics are not Brownian; rather, CD8+ T-cell motility in the brain is well described by a generalized Lévy walk. According to our model, this unexpected feature enables T cells to find rare targets with more than an order of magnitude more efficiency than Brownian random walkers. Thus, CD8+ T-cell behaviour is similar to Lévy strategies reported in organisms ranging from mussels to marine predators and monkeys, and CXCL10 aids T cells in shortening the average time taken to find rare targets.
Department of Pathobiology, School of Veterinary Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, 380 South University Avenue, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19104, USA.
Tajie H
TH
Harris
Edward J
EJ
Banigan
David A
DA
Christian
Christoph
C
Konradt
Elia D
ED
Tait Wojno
Kazumi
K
Norose
Emma H
EH
Wilson
Beena
B
John
Wolfgang
W
Weninger
Andrew D
AD
Luster
Andrea J
AJ
Liu
Christopher A
CA
Hunter
D000818:Animals; D001921:Brain / Q000276:immunology / Q000382:microbiology; D018414:CD8-Positive T-Lymphocytes / Q000166:cytology* / Q000276:immunology*; D002465:Cell Movement; D054357:Chemokine CXCL10 / Q000037:antagonists & inhibitors / Q000235:genetics / Q000276:immunology*; D005260:Female; D008024:Ligands; D008297:Male; D051379:Mice; D008810:Mice, Inbred C57BL; D018448:Models, Immunological; D054367:Receptors, CXCR3 / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism; D013997:Time Factors; D014122:Toxoplasma / Q000254:growth & development / Q000276:immunology
D054357:Chemokine CXCL10; C485433:Cxcl10 protein, mouse; D008024:Ligands; D054367:Receptors, CXCR3