Age-associated decreases in primary CD8 T cell responses occur, in part, due to direct effects on naive CD8 T cells to reduce intrinsic functionality, but the precise nature of this defect remains undefined. Aging also causes accumulation of antigen-naive but semi-differentiated "virtual memory" (T) cells, but their contribution to age-related functional decline is unclear. Here, we show that T cells are poorly proliferative in aged mice and humans, despite being highly proliferative in young individuals, while conventional naive T cells (T cells) retain proliferative capacity in both aged mice and humans. Adoptive transfer experiments in mice illustrated that naive CD8 T cells can acquire a proliferative defect imposed by the aged environment but age-related proliferative dysfunction could not be rescued by a young environment. Molecular analyses demonstrate that aged T cells exhibit a profile consistent with senescence, marking an observation of senescence in an antigenically naive T cell population.
The magnitude of T cell responses to infection is a function of the naïve T cell repertoire combined with the context and duration of antigen presentation. Using mass spectrometry, we identify and quantify 21 class 1 MHC-restricted influenza A virus (IAV)-peptides following either direct or cross-presentation. All these peptides, including seven novel epitopes, elicit T cell responses in infected C57BL/6 mice. Directly presented IAV epitopes maintain their relative abundance across distinct cell types and reveal a broad range of epitope abundances. In contrast, cross-presented epitopes are more uniform in abundance. We observe a clear disparity in the abundance of the two key immunodominant IAV antigens, wherein direct infection drives optimal nucleoprotein (NP)
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presentation, while cross-presentation is optimal for acid polymerase (PA)
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presentation. The study demonstrates how assessment of epitope abundance in both modes of antigen presentation is necessary to fully understand the immunogenicity and response magnitude to T cell epitopes.
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