Chagasic patients are able to respond against a viral antigen from influenza virus.
BMC Infect Dis 2012;
12:198. [PMID:
22920436 PMCID:
PMC3511223 DOI:
10.1186/1471-2334-12-198]
[Citation(s) in RCA: 5] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/02/2011] [Accepted: 08/13/2012] [Indexed: 12/13/2022] Open
Abstract
Background
Trypanosoma cruzi, the etiological agent of Chagas’ disease, is an obligate intracellular parasite which induces a CD8+ T cell immune response with secretion of cytokines and release of cytotoxic granules. Although an immune-suppressive effect of T. cruzi on the acute phase of the disease has been described, little is known about the capacity of CD8+ T cell from chronic chagasic patients to respond to a non-T. cruzi microbial antigen.
Methods
In the present paper, the frequency, phenotype and the functional activity of the CD8+ T cells specific from Flu-MP*, an influenza virus epitope, were determined in 13 chagasic patients and 5 healthy donors.
Results
The results show that Flu-MP* peptide specific CD8+ T cells were found with similar frequencies in both groups. In addition, Flu-MP* specific CD8+ T cells were distributed in the early or intermediate/late differentiation stages without showing enrichment of a specific sub-population. The mentioned Flu-MP* specific CD8+ T cells from chagasic patients were predominately TEM (CCR7- CD62L-), producing IL-2, IFNγ, CD107a/b and perforin, and did not present significant differences when compared with those from healthy donors.
Conclusions
Our results support the hypothesis that there is no CD8+ T cell nonspecific immune-suppression during chronic Chagas disease infection. Nonetheless, other viral antigens must be studied in order to confirm our findings.
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