Published online before print June 3, 2008
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,1
* Divisions of ROYCE Health Bioscience and
Immunoregulation, Section of Disease Control, Institute for Genetic Medicine, Hokkaido University, Sapporo, Japan
1 Correspondence: Division of Immunoregulation, Section of Disease Control, Institute for Genetic Medicine, Hokkaido University, Sapporo, 001-0021, Japan. E-mail: tak24{at}igm.hokudai.ac.jp
Cytokine production by memory T cells in secondary immune responses has a critical role in host defenses. Previously, we had demonstrated that a unique antigen composed of sialyl lewisx (sLex) was expressed on CD45RO+ memory-phenotype subsets of human T cells. Here, we found that the sLex antigen was up-regulated on CD45RA+ naïve human CD4+ T and CD8+ T cells by TCR stimulation. In addition, sLex antigen-expressing CD4+ T and CD8+ T cells in human PBMCs were activated immediately by cytokine stimulations composed of IL-2 plus IL-12 or IL-15 in an antigen-independent manner. Moreover, the sLex-positive human CD8+ T cells significantly enhanced reverse antibody-dependent cellular cytotoxicity compared with a sLex-negative population. These findings clearly indicate that sLex antigen-expressing memory phenotype CD4+ T and CD8+ T cells contribute to early-stage immunity by providing a source of IFN-
and cytotoxicity, suggesting that they would be a key immunomodulator in host defenses.
Key Words: selectin memory CD8+ T cells IL-15