Research on radiation-induced loss and regeneration of influenza-specific lung T resident memory by Mariah Hassert, Lecia Epping, Stephanie van de Wall and Madison Mix in the Harty lab and Mohammad Heidarian in the Badovinac lab was recently published in the Journal of Experimental Medicine.
https://rupress.org/jem/article/221/3/e20231144/276569/Regenerating-murine-CD8-lung-tissue-resident
Title
Regenerating murine CD8+ lung tissue resident memory T cells after targeted radiation exposure
Abstract.
Radiation exposure occurs during medical procedures, nuclear accidents, or spaceflight, making effective medical countermeasures a public health priority. Naive T cells are highly sensitive to radiation-induced depletion, although their numbers recover with time. Circulating memory CD8+ T cells are also depleted by radiation; however, their numbers do not recover. Critically, the impact of radiation exposure on tissue-resident memory T cells (TRM) remains unknown. Here, we found that sublethal thorax-targeted radiation resulted in the rapid and prolonged numerical decline of influenza A virus (IAV)–specific lung TRM in mice, but no decline in antigen-matched circulating memory T cells. Prolonged loss of lung TRM was associated with decreased heterosubtypic immunity. Importantly, boosting with IAV-epitope expressing pathogens that replicate in the lungs or peripheral tissues or with a peripherally administered mRNA vaccine regenerated lung TRM that was derived largely from circulating memory CD8+ T cells. Designing effective vaccination strategies to regenerate TRM will be important in combating the immunological effects of radiation exposure.
Mariah Hassert, Ph.D. is the lead author of the study. Co-authors include Lecia Epping, Stephanie van de Wall, Ph.D. and Madison Mix from the John T. Harty lab, Mohammad Heidarian, M.S. from the Vladimir P. Badovinac lab, Rui He and Pornpoj Phruttiwanichakun from the Aliasger Salem lab all at University of Iowa. This work was supported by grants from the NIH to MH, AS, VPB and JTH.