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.

Reviewing Editor

  1. Michael L Dustin, University of Oxford, United Kingdom

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.

Version history

  1. Received: March 27, 2017
  2. Accepted: November 23, 2017
  3. Accepted Manuscript published: December 14, 2017 (version 1)
  4. Version of Record published: December 29, 2017 (version 2)
  5. Version of Record updated: January 2, 2018 (version 3)

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

  • 2,651
    views
  • 427
    downloads
  • 21
    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
    Hee Young Kim, Yeon Jun Kang ... Won-Woo Lee
    Research Article

    Trained immunity is the long-term functional reprogramming of innate immune cells, which results in altered responses toward a secondary challenge. Despite indoxyl sulfate (IS) being a potent stimulus associated with chronic kidney disease (CKD)-related inflammation, its impact on trained immunity has not been explored. Here, we demonstrate that IS induces trained immunity in monocytes via epigenetic and metabolic reprogramming, resulting in augmented cytokine production. Mechanistically, the aryl hydrocarbon receptor (AhR) contributes to IS-trained immunity by enhancing the expression of arachidonic acid (AA) metabolism-related genes such as arachidonate 5-lipoxygenase (ALOX5) and ALOX5 activating protein (ALOX5AP). Inhibition of AhR during IS training suppresses the induction of IS-trained immunity. Monocytes from end-stage renal disease (ESRD) patients have increased ALOX5 expression and after 6 days training, they exhibit enhanced TNF-α and IL-6 production to lipopolysaccharide (LPS). Furthermore, healthy control-derived monocytes trained with uremic sera from ESRD patients exhibit increased production of TNF-α and IL-6. Consistently, IS-trained mice and their splenic myeloid cells had increased production of TNF-α after in vivo and ex vivo LPS stimulation compared to that of control mice. These results provide insight into the role of IS in the induction of trained immunity, which is critical during inflammatory immune responses in CKD patients.

    1. Cancer Biology
    2. Immunology and Inflammation
    Nicholas J Mullen, Surendra K Shukla ... Pankaj K Singh
    Research Article

    Pyrimidine nucleotide biosynthesis is a druggable metabolic dependency of cancer cells, and chemotherapy agents targeting pyrimidine metabolism are the backbone of treatment for many cancers. Dihydroorotate dehydrogenase (DHODH) is an essential enzyme in the de novo pyrimidine biosynthesis pathway that can be targeted by clinically approved inhibitors. However, despite robust preclinical anticancer efficacy, DHODH inhibitors have shown limited single-agent activity in phase 1 and 2 clinical trials. Therefore, novel combination therapy strategies are necessary to realize the potential of these drugs. To search for therapeutic vulnerabilities induced by DHODH inhibition, we examined gene expression changes in cancer cells treated with the potent and selective DHODH inhibitor brequinar (BQ). This revealed that BQ treatment causes upregulation of antigen presentation pathway genes and cell surface MHC class I expression. Mechanistic studies showed that this effect is (1) strictly dependent on pyrimidine nucleotide depletion, (2) independent of canonical antigen presentation pathway transcriptional regulators, and (3) mediated by RNA polymerase II elongation control by positive transcription elongation factor B (P-TEFb). Furthermore, BQ showed impressive single-agent efficacy in the immunocompetent B16F10 melanoma model, and combination treatment with BQ and dual immune checkpoint blockade (anti-CTLA-4 plus anti-PD-1) significantly prolonged mouse survival compared to either therapy alone. Our results have important implications for the clinical development of DHODH inhibitors and provide a rationale for combination therapy with BQ and immune checkpoint blockade.