The innate immune response mediated by cells such as natural killer (NK) cells is critical for the rapid containment of virus replication and spread during acute infection. Here, we show that subtype 11 of the type I interferon (IFN) family greatly potentiates the antiviral activity of NK cells during retroviral infection. Treatment of mice with IFN-α11 during Friend retrovirus infection (FV) significantly reduced viral loads and resulted in long-term protection from virus-induced leukemia. The effect of IFN-α11 on NK cells was direct and signaled through the type I IFN receptor. Furthermore, IFN-α11-mediated activation of NK cells enabled cytolytic killing of FV-infected target cells via the exocytosis pathway. Depletion and adoptive transfer experiments illustrated that NK cells played a major role in successful IFN-α11 therapy. Additional experiments with Mouse Cytomegalovirus infections demonstrated that the therapeutic effect of IFN-α11 is not restricted to retroviruses. The type I IFN subtypes 2 and 5, which bind the same receptor as IFN-α11, did not elicit similar antiviral effects. These results demonstrate a unique and subtype-specific activation of NK cells by IFN-α11.

Very few B cells in germinal centers (GCs) and extrafollicular (EF) regions of lymph nodes express CD30. Their specific features and relationship to CD30-expressing Hodgkin and Reed/Sternberg (HRS) cells of Hodgkin lymphoma are unclear but highly relevant, because numerous patients with lymphoma are currently treated with an anti-CD30 immunotoxin. We performed a comprehensive analysis of human CD30+ B cells. Phenotypic and IgV gene analyses indicated that CD30+ GC B lymphocytes represent typical GC B cells, and that CD30+ EF B cells are mostly post-GC B cells. The transcriptomes of CD30+ GC and EF B cells largely overlapped, sharing a strong MYC signature, but were strikingly different from conventional GC B cells and memory B and plasma cells, respectively. CD30+ GC B cells represent MYC+ centrocytes redifferentiating into centroblasts; CD30+ EF B cells represent active, proliferating memory B cells. HRS cells shared typical transcriptome patterns with CD30+ B cells, suggesting that they originate from these lymphocytes or acquire their characteristic features during lymphomagenesis. By comparing HRS to normal CD30+ B cells we redefined aberrant and disease-specific features of HRS cells. A remarkable downregulation of genes regulating genomic stability and cytokinesis in HRS cells may explain their genomic instability and multinuclearity.

BackgroundCo-infection of HIV patients with cytomegalovirus (CMV) is associated with enhanced AIDS progression and CMV end-organ diseases. On the other hand, persistent CMV infection has recently been shown to decrease tumor relapse and protect against lethal bacterial infection. The influence of persistent CMV on the outcome of an acute retroviral superinfection is still unknown.ResultsHere we show that a persistent murine CMV (mCMV) infection surprisingly confers higher resistance to a primary Friend retrovirus infection (FV) of mice. Decreased FV titers and augmented FV-specific CD8 T-cell responses were found in mCMV infected mice during primary FV superinfection. NK cells produced higher amounts of IFNgamma after FV infection of persistently mCMV infected mice suggesting that these cells were involved in the ‘protective’ effect. Depletion of NK1.1+ cells or neutralization of IFNgamma during FV superinfection abrogated the mCMV-mediated effect.ConclusionOur data demonstrate for the first time that a persistent CMV infection induces long-lasting NK cell responses that can enhance immunity to primary retroviral infections. To our knowledge, studies investigating primary HIV infection have not analyzed the role of the CMV seropositivity in these patients. Our observations suggest that NK cells in CMV seropositive individuals might contribute to the control of primary HIV infection.

It is still unclear whether expanded and activated regulatory T cells (Tregs) in chronic viral infections can influence primary immune responses against superinfections with unrelated viruses. Expanded Tregs found in the spleens of chronically Friend virus (FV)-infected mice decreased murine cytomegalovirus (mCMV)-specific CD8؉ T cell responses during acute mCMV superinfection. This suppression of mCMV-specific T cell immunity was found only in organs with FV-induced Treg expansion. Surprisingly, acute mCMV infection itself did not expand or activate Tregs. P revious infections can influence the immune response to infections with unrelated pathogens, which is called heterologous immunity (1, 2). This phenomenon has been found in closely related and completely unrelated viral infections in humans and in mouse models (3). To date, limited information is available as to whether virus-expanded regulatory T cells (Tregs) in a chronically infected host play a role in heterologous immunity. In this study, we investigated the influence of Friend virus (FV)-expanded Tregs on the primary murine cytomegalovirus (mCMV)-specific CD8 ϩ T cell response during an acute mCMV superinfection.We first confirmed the expansion of Tregs during FV infection by determining the number of Tregs in chronically FV-infected mice in different organs ( Fig. 1a) (4, 5). C57BL/6 mice (males, 8 to 9 weeks old) were infected intravenously with 40,000 spleen focusforming units (SFFU) of FV, and CD4 ϩ Foxp3 ϩ Tregs were measured at day 42 postinfection (6, 7). Significantly enhanced percentages (not shown) and absolute numbers of Tregs were found in the spleens but not in the livers and peritoneal exudate cells (PECs) of chronically FV-infected mice compared to results for naive, age-matched controls (Fig. 1a). FV-expanded Tregs had an activated and differentiated phenotype (CD43 ϩ CD69 ϩ and KLRG-1 ϩ ), in contrast to Tregs from uninfected mice at day 10 and day 42 after FV infection ( Fig. 1c and reference 8, respectively).To investigate whether mCMV infection also induces an expansion of Tregs, naive mice were infected intraperitoneally with 5 ϫ 10 4 PFU of mCMV (Smith strain [7]) and CD4 ϩ Foxp3 ϩ Tregs were analyzed at day 10 postinfection in the spleen, liver, and salivary gland, sites where mCMV replicates (9). Surprisingly, no expansion or activation of Tregs was found in the spleens of acutely mCMV-infected mice, in contrast to what is described for FV or lymphocytic choriomeningitis virus (LCMV) infection (Fig. 1b and c) (10-12). Additionally, no expansion of the V␤5 ϩ CD4 ϩ Foxp3 ϩ Tregs, which recognize self-superantigens expressed by endogenous mouse mammary tumor virus, were detectable in mCMV-infected mice (8, 10, 11; data not shown). Furthermore, Tregs from mCMV-infected mice displayed the same phenotype as Tregs from naive animals (Fig. 1c). This was also the case for later time points after mCMV infection (Ͼ10 days postinfection) (data not shown), indicating that mCMV does not induce Treg responses in C57BL/6 mice.Tregs in influen...

Natural killer (NK) cells are at the junction of the innate and the adaptive immune response and play a very important role in host defense against viral infections and cancer. They have numerous cell surface receptors that activate or inhibit various intracellular signaling cascades that are then integrated to determine the functional activity of these cells. Here we present a surface-based approach that aims to tackle the largely unknown molecular mechanisms of signal integration. We use DNA microarrays containing capture oligonucleotides for the DNA-directed immobilization (DDI) of oligonucleotide-tagged αCD16 antibodies as ligands for NK cells. We demonstrate that the resulting surfaces can be gradually tuned in terms of ligand density to trigger the activation of living NK cells, as evidenced by degranulation, the release of cytokines, and intracellular Ca(2+) flux, measured at the level of single cells.