Vladimir Badovinac, PhD and his research laboratory were recently featured in the American Association of Immunologists for their article, titled The ability of memory CD8 T cell subsets to numerically and functionally recover following whole body irradiation is influenced by their history of cognate antigen exposures.
Elizabeth Escue, MS, a student in our Experimental Pathology PhD program and member of the Badovinac laboratory, is the lead author on this study. This study investigated the ability of CD8 T cells to recover after radiation exposure. Radiation is known to deplete various immune cell types, including lymphocytes, in affected persons, which leaves the person immunocompromised. Little is known about methods on restoring the number and function of lymphocytes following radiation exposure. The study found that the number of prior antigen exposures did not alter the susceptibility of memory CD8 T cells to radiation-induced cell death, among other findings.
This specific study builds off of the laboratory's previous findings that whole-body irradiation (WBI) negatively impacts CD8 T cells generated after a single antigen exposure. Memory CD8 T cells, however, exist in several distinct "flavors," shaped in part by the number of times they have encountered their cognate antigen (Ag) through repeated infections or vaccinations.