Abstract
We investigated whether healthy young (age≤40) and elderly (age≥65) people infected with cytomegalovirus (CMV) had similar levels of CD8+ T cell cytokine production and proliferation in response to an immunodominant CMV pp65 peptide pool given the role of CD8+ T cells in controlling viral infection and the association of CMV with immunosenescence. Plus, we determined the effects of aging and CMV-infectious status on plasma levels of IL-27, an innate immune cytokine with pro- and anti-inflammatory properties, as well as on its relationship to IFN-γ in that IL-27 can promote the production of IFN-γ. The results of our study show that young and elderly people had similar levels of CD8+ T cell proliferation, and IFN-γ and TNF-α production in response to CMV pp65 peptides. Plasma levels of IL-27 were similar between the two groups although CMV-infected young and elderly people had a trend toward increased levels of IL-27. Regardless of aging and CMV-infectious status, plasma levels of IL-27 correlated highly with plasma levels of IFN-γ. These findings suggest the maintenance of CMV pp65-specific CD8+ T cell proliferation and cytokine production with aging as well as the sustaining of circulatory IL-27 levels and its biological link to IFN-γ in young and elderly people irrespective of CMV infection.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 485-490 |
| Number of pages | 6 |
| Journal | Cytokine |
| Volume | 61 |
| Issue number | 2 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Feb 2013 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:We thank Ms. Amy Shelton, Ms. Laurie Kramer and Yale Center for Clinical Investigation (UL1 RR024139) for assisting in the recruitment of human subjects. This work was supported in part by grants from the National Institutes of Health (AG028069, AG030834 to IK). Insoo Kang is a participant in the World Class University Program of Republic of Korea.
Keywords
- Aging
- CD8 T cells
- Cytomegalovirus (CMV)
- Human
- IL-27