Scanning electron microscope image of a human lymphocyteWIKIMEDIA, NCIFollowing genetically marked donor memory T cells infused into hematopoietic stem cell transplantation patients, a team led by researchers at the University Vita-Salute San Raffaele in Milan, Italy, found that two types of less-differentiated memory T cells can persist for up to 14 years. The team’s results, published today (December 9) in Science Translational Medicine, demonstrate that the survival of these immune cells depends on the type of memory T cells initially introduced into patients, and whether these cells continue to encounter antigens over time.
“This was a really elegant and thorough study in people confirming some of what we already knew from mouse studies,” said immunologist Lewis Lanier of the University of California, San Francisco, who was not involved in the work.
“This is one of the most thorough studies using diverse clonal tracking technologies to analyze the fate of individual memory T cells in humans,” said Luca Gattinoni, a transplantation and immunology expert at the National Cancer Institute in Bethesda, Maryland.
Part of the adaptive immune system, memory T cells are generated from naive T cells; these specialized immune cells monitor reappearing antigens. Because it is difficult to longitudinally track antigen-specific clones in patients, most of what was previously known about memory immune cells had been found in ...
