title: Role of vitamin D in cytotoxic T lymphocyte immunity to pathogens and cancer.
abstract: The discovery of vitamin D receptor (VDR) expression in immune cells has opened up a new area of research into immunoregulation by vitamin D, a niche that is distinct from its classical role in skeletal health. Today, about three decades since this discovery, numerous cellular and molecular targets of vitamin D in the immune system have been delineated. Moreover, strong clinical associations between vitamin D status and the incidence/severity of many immune-regulated disorders (e.g. infectious diseases, cancers and autoimmunity) have prompted the idea of using vitamin D supplementation to manipulate disease outcome. While much is known about the effects of vitamin D on innate immune responses and helper T (T(H)) cell immunity, there has been relatively limited progress on the frontier of cytotoxic T lymphocyte (CTL) immunity--an arm of host cellular adaptive immunity that is crucial for the control of such intracellular pathogens as human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), tuberculosis (TB), malaria, and hepatitis C virus (HCV). In this review, we discuss the strong historical and clinical link between vitamin D and infectious diseases that involves cytotoxic T lymphocyte (CTL) immunity, present our current understanding as well as critical knowledge gaps in the realm of vitamin D regulation of host CTL responses, and highlight potential regulatory connections between vitamin D and effector and memory CD8 T cell differentiation events during infections.
authors.affiliation: a Department of Pediatrics, Division of Hematology and Oncology , University of Washington School of Medicine , Seattle , WA , USA .|b Seattle Children's Research Institute, Ben Towne Center for Childhood Cancer Research , Seattle , WA , USA .
authors.forename: Surojit
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Sarkar
authors.affiliation: c Centre for Endocrinology, Diabetes and Metabolism (CEDAM), The University of Birmingham , Birmingham , UK .
authors.forename: Martin
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Hewison
authors.affiliation: d Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine , Rutgers New Jersey Medical School , Newark , NJ , USA , and.
authors.forename: George P
authors.initials: GP
authors.lastname: Studzinski
authors.affiliation: e Department of Medicine, Division of Biological Sciences , The University of Chicago , Chicago , IL , USA.
authors.forename: Yan Chun
authors.initials: YC
authors.lastname: Li
authors.affiliation: a Department of Pediatrics, Division of Hematology and Oncology , University of Washington School of Medicine , Seattle , WA , USA .|b Seattle Children's Research Institute, Ben Towne Center for Childhood Cancer Research , Seattle , WA , USA .
authors.forename: Vandana
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Kalia
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D003141:Communicable Diseases / Q000276:immunology*; D019587:Dietary Supplements; D006801:Humans; D007109:Immunity; D009369:Neoplasms / Q000276:immunology* / Q000473:pathology; D013602:T-Lymphocytes, Cytotoxic / Q000276:immunology*; D014807:Vitamin D / Q000378:metabolism*
chemical_list: D014807:Vitamin D
keywords: CD8 T cells; Calcitriol; Cyp27B1; differentiation; effector cells; immunological memory; protective immunity; vitamin D receptor