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Blood, 15 December 2008, Vol. 112, No. 13, pp. 4981-4990. Prepublished online as a Blood First Edition Paper on September 26, 2008; DOI 10.1182/blood-2008-05-160077.
IMMUNOBIOLOGY Intestinal double-positive CD4+CD8+ T cells of neonatal rhesus macaques are proliferating, activated memory cells and primary targets for SIVMAC251 infectionDivisions of1 Comparative Pathology, 2 Microbiology, and 3 Immunology, Tulane National Primate Research Center, Tulane University School of Medicine, Covington, LA Peripheral blood and thymic double-positive (DP) CD4+CD8+ T cells from neonates have been described earlier, but the function and immunophenotypic characteristics of other tissue-derived DP T cells are not clearly understood. Here, we demonstrate the functional and immunophenotypic characteristics of DP cells in 6 different tissues, including thymus from normal neonatal rhesus macaques (Macaca mulatta) between 0 and 21 days of age. In general, intestinal DP T cells of neonates have higher percentages of memory markers (CD28+CD95+CD45RAlowCD62Llow) and proliferation compared with single-positive (SP) CD4+ and CD8+ T cells. In addition, percentages of DP T cells increase and CD62L expression decreases as animals mature, suggesting that DP cells mature and proliferate with maturity and/or antigen exposure. Consistent with this, intestinal DP T cells in neonates express higher levels of CCR5 and are the primary targets in simian immunodeficiency virus (SIV) infection. Finally, DP T cells produce higher levels of cytokine in response to mitogen stimulation compared with SP CD4+ or CD8+ T cells. Collectively, these findings demonstrate that intestinal DP T cells of neonates are proliferating, activated memory cells and are likely involved in regulating immune responses, in contrast to immature DP T cells in the thymus.
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