title: Emerging concepts in tissue-resident T cells: lessons from humans.
abstract: Intensified efforts to promote protective T cell-based immunity in vaccines and immunotherapies have created a compelling need to expand our understanding of human T cell function and maintenance beyond its characterization in peripheral blood. Mouse studies of T cell immunity show that, in response to infection, T cells migrate to diverse sites and persist as tissue-resident memory T cells (TRM), which mediate rapid in situ protection on antigen recall. Here we discuss new approaches to probe human T cell immunity, including novel sampling, that indicate a broad distribution and high frequency of human TRM in multiple sites. These newer findings further implicate anatomic compartmentalization as a generalized mechanism for long-term maintenance of human T cells throughout life.
authors.affiliation: Columbia Center for Translational Immunology, Columbia University Medical Center, New York, NY 10032, USA; Department of Microbiology and Immunology, Columbia University Medical Center, New York, NY 10032, USA.
authors.forename: Joseph J C
authors.initials: JJ
authors.lastname: Thome
authors.affiliation: Columbia Center for Translational Immunology, Columbia University Medical Center, New York, NY 10032, USA; Department of Surgery, Columbia University Medical Center, New York, NY 10032, USA; Department of Microbiology and Immunology, Columbia University Medical Center, New York, NY 10032, USA. Electronic address: df2396@cumc.columbia.edu.
authors.forename: Donna L
authors.initials: DL
authors.lastname: Farber
mesh_terms: D006801:Humans; D007156:Immunologic Memory / Q000276:immunology*; D009928:Organ Specificity; D013601:T-Lymphocytes / Q000166:cytology / Q000276:immunology*
keywords: immune homeostasis; immune memory; mucosal immunity; naïve T cells; peripheral blood