Abstract

Continuous contact with self-major histocompatibility complex ligands is essential for the survival of naive CD4 T cells. We have previously shown that the resulting tonic TCR signaling also influences their fate upon activation by increasing their ability to differentiate into induced/peripheral regulatory T cells. To decipher the molecular mechanisms governing this process, we here focus on the TCR signaling cascade and demonstrate that a rise in intracellular calcium levels is sufficient to modulate the phenotype of mouse naive CD4 T cells and to increase their sensitivity to regulatory T-cell polarization signals, both processes relying on Calcineurin activation. Accordingly, in vivo Calcineurin inhibition leads the most Self-reactive naive CD4 T cells to adopt the phenotype of their less Self-reactive cell-counterparts. Collectively, our findings demonstrate that calcium-mediated activation of the Calcineurin pathway acts as a rheostat to shape both the phenotype and effector potential of naive CD4 T cells in the steady-state.

Data availability

The following data sets were generated
The following previously published data sets were used

Article and author information

Author details

  1. Vincent Guichard

    Infection, Immunity and Inflammation, Institut Cochin - Inserm U1016-CNRS UMR8104-Université Paris Descartes, Paris, France
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
    ORCID icon "This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0003-0206-4924
  2. Nelly Bonilla

    Infection, Immunity and Inflammation, Institut Cochin - Inserm U1016-CNRS UMR8104-Université Paris Descartes, Paris, France
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  3. Aurélie Durand

    Infection, Immunity and Inflammation, Institut Cochin - Inserm U1016-CNRS UMR8104-Université Paris Descartes, Paris, France
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  4. Alexandra Audemard-Verger

    Infection, Immunity and Inflammation, Institut Cochin - Inserm U1016-CNRS UMR8104-Université Paris Descartes, Paris, France
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  5. Thomas Guilbert

    Cell Biology of Host Pathogens Interactions, Institut Cochin - Inserm U1016-CNRS UMR8104-Université Paris Descartes, Paris, France
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  6. Bruno Martin

    Infection, Immunity and Inflammation, Institut Cochin - Inserm U1016-CNRS UMR8104-Université Paris Descartes, Paris, France
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  7. Bruno Lucas

    Infection, Immunity and Inflammation, Institut Cochin - Inserm U1016-CNRS UMR8104-Université Paris Descartes, Paris, France
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  8. Cédric Auffray

    Infection, Immunity and Inflammation, Institut Cochin - Inserm U1016-CNRS UMR8104-Université Paris Descartes, Paris, France
    For correspondence
    cedric.auffray@inserm.fr
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
    ORCID icon "This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0002-1012-0132

Funding

Institut National de la Santé et de la Recherche Médicale

  • Nelly Bonilla
  • Alexandra Audemard-Verger
  • Thomas Guilbert
  • Bruno Martin
  • Bruno Lucas
  • Cédric Auffray

Agence Nationale de la Recherche (ANR-15-CE15-0009-01)

  • Cédric Auffray

Fondation pour la Recherche Médicale

  • Bruno Lucas

Ligue Contre le Cancer

  • Alexandra Audemard-Verger

The funders had no role in study design, data collection and interpretation, or the decision to submit the work for publication.

Ethics

Animal experimentation: Experiments were carried out in accordance with the guidelines of the French Veterinary Department. All procedures performed were approved by the Paris-Descartes Ethical Committee for Animal Experimentation (decision CEEA34.CA.080.12). Sample sizes were chosen to ensure the reproducibility of the experiments and according to the 3Rs of animal ethics regulation.

Copyright

© 2017, Guichard et al.

This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License permitting unrestricted use and redistribution provided that the original author and source are credited.

Metrics

  • 2,731
    views
  • 436
    downloads
  • 22
    citations

Views, downloads and citations are aggregated across all versions of this paper published by eLife.

Download links

A two-part list of links to download the article, or parts of the article, in various formats.

Downloads (link to download the article as PDF)

Open citations (links to open the citations from this article in various online reference manager services)

Cite this article (links to download the citations from this article in formats compatible with various reference manager tools)

  1. Vincent Guichard
  2. Nelly Bonilla
  3. Aurélie Durand
  4. Alexandra Audemard-Verger
  5. Thomas Guilbert
  6. Bruno Martin
  7. Bruno Lucas
  8. Cédric Auffray
(2017)
Calcium-mediated shaping of naive CD4 T-cell phenotype and function
eLife 6:e27215.
https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.27215

Share this article

https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.27215

Further reading

    1. Immunology and Inflammation
    Weigao Zhang, Hu Liu ... Dan Weng
    Research Article

    As a central hub for metabolism, the liver exhibits strong adaptability to maintain homeostasis in response to food fluctuations throughout evolution. However, the mechanisms governing this resilience remain incompletely understood. In this study, we identified Receptor interacting protein kinase 1 (RIPK1) in hepatocytes as a critical regulator in preserving hepatic homeostasis during metabolic challenges, such as short-term fasting or high-fat dieting. Our results demonstrated that hepatocyte-specific deficiency of RIPK1 sensitized the liver to short-term fasting-induced liver injury and hepatocyte apoptosis in both male and female mice. Despite being a common physiological stressor that typically does not induce liver inflammation, short-term fasting triggered hepatic inflammation and compensatory proliferation in hepatocyte-specific RIPK1-deficient (Ripk1-hepKO) mice. Transcriptomic analysis revealed that short-term fasting oriented the hepatic microenvironment into an inflammatory state in Ripk1-hepKO mice, with up-regulated expression of inflammation and immune cell recruitment-associated genes. Single-cell RNA sequencing further confirmed the altered cellular composition in the liver of Ripk1-hepKO mice during fasting, highlighting the increased recruitment of macrophages to the liver. Mechanically, our results indicated that ER stress was involved in fasting-induced liver injury in Ripk1-hepKO mice. Overall, our findings revealed the role of RIPK1 in maintaining liver homeostasis during metabolic fluctuations and shed light on the intricate interplay between cell death, inflammation, and metabolism.

    1. Immunology and Inflammation
    Shih-Wen Huang, Yein-Gei Lai ... Nan-Shih Liao
    Research Article

    Natural killer (NK) cells can control metastasis through cytotoxicity and IFN-γ production independently of T cells in experimental metastasis mouse models. The inverse correlation between NK activity and metastasis incidence supports a critical role for NK cells in human metastatic surveillance. However, autologous NK cell therapy has shown limited benefit in treating patients with metastatic solid tumors. Using a spontaneous metastasis mouse model of MHC-I+ breast cancer, we found that transfer of IL-15/IL-12-conditioned syngeneic NK cells after primary tumor resection promoted long-term survival of mice with low metastatic burden and induced a tumor-specific protective T cell response that is essential for the therapeutic effect. Furthermore, NK cell transfer augments activation of conventional dendritic cells (cDCs), Foxp3-CD4+ T cells and stem cell-like CD8+ T cells in metastatic lungs, to which IFN-γ of the transferred NK cells contributes significantly. These results imply direct interactions between transferred NK cells and endogenous cDCs to enhance T cell activation. We conducted an investigator-initiated clinical trial of autologous NK cell therapy in six patients with advanced cancer and observed that the NK cell therapy was safe and showed signs of effectiveness. These findings indicate that autologous NK cell therapy is effective in treating established low burden metastases of MHC-I+ tumor cells by activating the cDC-T cell axis at metastatic sites.