Peripheral immune protection against mucosal virus infection

2017 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 16H07504
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Research Activity Start-up
• Allocation Type: Single-year Grants
• Research Field: Immunology
• Research Institution: National Institutes of Biomedical Innovation, Health and Nutrition
• Principal Investigator: IIJIMA NORIFUMI 国立研究開発法人医薬基盤・健康・栄養研究所, 医薬基盤研究所 ワクチン・アジュバント研究センター, サブプロジェクトリーダー (40612552)
• Co-Investigator(Renkei-kenkyūsha): Okuzaki Daisuke 大阪大学, 微生物病研究所 遺伝情報実センター ゲノム解析室, 助教 (00346131) ; Tsuneki Masayuki 昭和大学, 歯学部口腔病理学部門, 助教 (40714944)
• Project Period (FY): 2016-08-26 – 2018-03-31
• Keywords: 組織局在型メモリー T 細胞

Outline of Final Research Achievements

Herpes simplex virus type 2 (HSV-2) is known to cause genital herpes by recurrent activation. So far, effective vaccine against HSV-2 is not available. Towards developing vaccines to prevent HSV transmission and disease, a clear understanding of the mechanism by which immune responses are mediated within the relevant mucosal sites is necessary.
Until now, we have found that tissue-resident memory T cells (TRM) form the cluster “memory lymphocyte clusters (MLC)” beneath mucosal epithelium in mouse model of attenuated HSV immunization and HSV+ patients. In the present study, we performed RNA-sequencing analysis to identify virus transcript in vaginal tissues following HSV-2 infection. In addition, we analyzed viral antigen which is recognized by CD4+ TRM in vaginal tissue following HSV-2 infection. The data in this study clearly provide further important evidence to dissect the effector function of CD4+TRM in the near future.

Free Research Field

粘膜免疫学