Publication Date:
2015-02-14
Description:
by Ronny Uzana, Galit Eisenberg, Sharon Merims, Shoshana Frankenburg, Aviad Pato, Eitan Yefenof, Roni Engelstein, Tamar Peretz, Arthur Machlenkin, Michal Lotem Trogocytosis is a contact-dependent unidirectional transfer of membrane fragments between immune effector cells and their targets, initially detected in T cells following interaction with professional antigen presenting cells (APC). Previously, we have demonstrated that trogocytosis also takes place between melanoma-specific cytotoxic T lymphocytes (CTLs) and their cognate tumors. In the present study, we took this finding a step further, focusing on the ability of melanoma membrane-imprinted CD8 + T cells to act as APCs (CD8 + T-APCs). We demonstrate that, following trogocytosis, CD8 + T-APCs directly present a variety of melanoma derived peptides to fraternal T cells with the same TCR specificity or to T cells with different TCRs. The resulting T cell-T cell immune synapse leads to (1) Activation of effector CTLs, as determined by proliferation, cytokine secretion and degranulation; (2) Fratricide (killing) of CD8 + T-APCs by the activated CTLs. Thus, trogocytosis enables cross-reactivity among CD8 + T cells with interchanging roles of effectors and APCs. This dual function of tumor-reactive CTLs may hint at their ability to amplify or restrict reactivity against the tumor and participate in modulation of the anti-cancer immune response.
Electronic ISSN:
1932-6203
Topics:
Medicine
,
Natural Sciences in General
