TY  - JOUR
A1  - Bell, Luisa
A1  - Lenhart, Alexander
A1  - Rosenwald, Andreas
A1  - Monoranu, Camelia M.
A1  - Berberich-Siebelt, Friederike
T1  - Lymphoid aggregates in the CNS of progressive multiple sclerosis patients lack regulatory T cells
JF  - Frontiers in Immunology
N2  - In gray matter pathology of multiple sclerosis, neurodegeneration associates with a high degree of meningeal inflammatory activity. Importantly, ectopic lymphoid follicles (eLFs) were identified at the inflamed meninges of patients with progressive multiple sclerosis. Besides T lymphocytes, they comprise B cells and might elicit germinal center (GC)-like reactions. GC reactions are controlled by FOXP3+ T-follicular regulatory cells (TFR), but it is unknown if they participate in autoantibody production in eLFs. Receiving human post-mortem material, gathered from autopsies of progressive multiple sclerosis patients, indeed, distinct inflammatory infiltrates enriched with B cells could be detected in perivascular areas and deep sulci. CD35+ cells, parafollicular CD138+ plasma cells, and abundant expression of the homing receptor for GCs, CXCR5, on lymphocytes defined some of them as eLFs. However, they resembled GCs only in varying extent, as T cells did not express PD-1, only few cells were positive for the key transcriptional regulator BCL-6 and ongoing proliferation, whereas a substantial number of T cells expressed high NFATc1 like GC-follicular T cells. Then again, predominant cytoplasmic NFATc1 and an enrichment with CD3+CD27+ memory and CD4+CD69+ tissue-resident cells implied a chronic state, very much in line with PD-1 and BCL-6 downregulation. Intriguingly, FOXP3+ cells were almost absent in the whole brain sections and CD3+FOXP3+ TFRs were never found in the lymphoid aggregates. This also points to less controlled humoral immune responses in those lymphoid aggregates possibly enabling the occurrence of CNS-specific autoantibodies in multiple sclerosis patients.
KW  - ectopic lymphoid follicle
KW  - lymphoid aggregate
KW  - T-follicular regulatory cell
KW  - meningeal inflammation
KW  - NFATc1
KW  - progressive multiple sclerosis
Y1  - 2020
U6  - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-198130
SN  - 1664-3224
VL  - 10
IS  - 3090
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Klein-Hessling, Stefan
A1  - Muhammad, Khalid
A1  - Klein, Matthias
A1  - Pusch, Tobias
A1  - Rudolf, Ronald
A1  - Flöter, Jessica
A1  - Qureischi, Musga
A1  - Beilhack, Andreas
A1  - Vaeth, Martin
A1  - Kummerow, Carsten
A1  - Backes, Christian
A1  - Schoppmeyer, Rouven
A1  - Hahn, Ulrike
A1  - Hoth, Markus
A1  - Bopp, Tobias
A1  - Berberich-Siebelt, Friederike
A1  - Patra, Amiya
A1  - Avots, Andris
A1  - Müller, Nora
A1  - Schulze, Almut
A1  - Serfling, Edgar
T1  - NFATc1 controls the cytotoxicity of CD8\(^{+}\) T cells
JF  - Nature Communications
N2  - Cytotoxic T lymphocytes are effector CD8\(^{+}\) T cells that eradicate infected and malignant cells. Here we show that the transcription factor NFATc1 controls the cytotoxicity of mouse cytotoxic T lymphocytes. Activation of Nfatc1\(^{-/-}\) cytotoxic T lymphocytes showed a defective cytoskeleton organization and recruitment of cytosolic organelles to immunological synapses. These cells have reduced cytotoxicity against tumor cells, and mice with NFATc1-deficient T cells are defective in controlling Listeria infection. Transcriptome analysis shows diminished RNA levels of numerous genes in Nfatc1\(^{-/-}\) CD8\(^{+}\) T cells, including Tbx21, Gzmb and genes encoding cytokines and chemokines, and genes controlling glycolysis. Nfatc1\(^{-/-}\), but not Nfatc2\(^{-/-}\) CD8\(^{+}\) T cells have an impaired metabolic switch to glycolysis, which can be restored by IL-2. Genome-wide ChIP-seq shows that NFATc1 binds many genes that control cytotoxic T lymphocyte activity. Together these data indicate that NFATc1 is an important regulator of cytotoxic T lymphocyte effector functions.
KW  - cytotoxic T cells
KW  - lymphocyte activation
KW  - signal transduction
KW  - gene regulation
KW  - immune cells
KW  - NFATc1
Y1  - 2017
U6  - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-170353
VL  - 8
IS  - 511
ER  -