Ahn et al. found that PD-1 is rapidly expressed alongside activation markers following antigen stimulation (either by viral infection or peptide injection) of naive CD8+ T cells in vivo, even before division begins. This rapid expression was found to be primarily mediated by antigenic stimulation of the TCR and was dependent on NFAT. Early blockade of the PD-1 axis increased the effector function of virus-specific CD8+ T cells, resulting in more rapid viral clearance, followed by an increase in CD127hi KLRG1low memory precursor cells, indicating that PD-1 plays an early role in T cell function and differentiation.
PD-1 (programmed cell death-1) is the central inhibitory receptor regulating CD8 T cell exhaustion during chronic viral infection and cancer. Interestingly, PD-1 is also expressed transiently by activated CD8 T cells during acute viral infection, but the role of PD-1 in modulating T cell effector differentiation and function is not well defined. To address this question, we examined the expression kinetics and role of PD-1 during acute lymphocytic choriomeningitis virus (LCMV) infection of mice. PD-1 was rapidly up-regulated in vivo upon activation of naive virus-specific CD8 T cells within 24 h after LCMV infection and in less than 4 h after peptide injection, well before any cell division had occurred. This rapid PD-1 expression by CD8 T cells was driven predominantly by antigen receptor signaling since infection with a LCMV strain with a mutation in the CD8 T cell epitope did not result in the increase of PD-1 on antigen-specific CD8 T cells. Blockade of the PD-1 pathway using anti-PD-L1 or anti-PD-1 antibodies during the early phase of acute LCMV infection increased mTOR signaling and granzyme B expression in virus-specific CD8 T cells and resulted in faster clearance of the infection. These results show that PD-1 plays an inhibitory role during the naive-to-effector CD8 T cell transition and that the PD-1 pathway can also be modulated at this stage of T cell differentiation. These findings have implications for developing therapeutic vaccination strategies in combination with PD-1 blockade.
Author Info: (1) Emory Vaccine Center, Department of Microbiology and Immunology, Emory University School of Medicine, Atlanta, GA 30322. (2) Emory Vaccine Center, Department of Microbiology an
Author Info: (1) Emory Vaccine Center, Department of Microbiology and Immunology, Emory University School of Medicine, Atlanta, GA 30322. (2) Emory Vaccine Center, Department of Microbiology and Immunology, Emory University School of Medicine, Atlanta, GA 30322. (3) Emory Vaccine Center, Department of Microbiology and Immunology, Emory University School of Medicine, Atlanta, GA 30322. (4) Emory Vaccine Center, Department of Microbiology and Immunology, Emory University School of Medicine, Atlanta, GA 30322. (5) Department of Microbiology, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA 19104. Institute for Immunology, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA 19104. (6) Department of Cancer Immunology, Genentech, Inc., South San Francisco, CA 94080. (7) Department of Microbiology and Immunobiology, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA Evergrande Center for Immunologic Diseases, Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women's Hospital, Boston, MA 02115. (8) Department of Medical Oncology, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02215. (9) Department of Cancer Immunology, Genentech, Inc., South San Francisco, CA 94080. (10) Emory Vaccine Center, Department of Microbiology and Immunology, Emory University School of Medicine, Atlanta, GA 30322; rahmed@emory.edu.
