1. Immunology and Inflammation

Stochastic asymmetric repartition of lytic machinery in dividing CD8+ T cells generates heterogeneous killing behavior

  1. Fanny Lafouresse  Is a corresponding author
  2. Romain Jugele
  3. Sabina Müller
  4. Marine Doineau
  5. Valérie Duplan-Eche
  6. Eric Espinosa
  7. Marie-Pierre Puissegur
  8. Sébastien Gadat
  9. Salvatore Valitutti
  1. Centre de Recherche en Cancérologie de Toulouse, France
  2. Toulouse School of Economics, UMR 5604, France
  3. Centre de Physiopathologie de Toulouse Purpan, France
https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.62691
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Cite this article
  1. Fanny Lafouresse
  2. Romain Jugele
  3. Sabina Müller
  4. Marine Doineau
  5. Valérie Duplan-Eche
  6. Eric Espinosa
  7. Marie-Pierre Puissegur
  8. Sébastien Gadat
  9. Salvatore Valitutti
(2021)
Stochastic asymmetric repartition of lytic machinery in dividing CD8+ T cells generates heterogeneous killing behavior
eLife 10:e62691.
https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.62691
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Abstract

Cytotoxic immune cells are endowed with a high degree of heterogeneity in their lytic function, but how this heterogeneity is generated is still an open question. We therefore investigated if human CD8+ T cells could segregate their lytic components during telophase, using imaging flow cytometry, confocal microscopy and live cell imaging. We show that CD107a+-intracellular vesicles, perforin and granzyme B unevenly segregate in a constant fraction of telophasic cells during each division round. Mathematical modeling posits that unequal lytic molecule inheritance by daughter cells results from the random distribution of lytic granules on the two sides of the cleavage furrow. Finally, we establish that the level of lytic compartment in individual CTL dictates CTL killing capacity. Together, our results show the stochastic asymmetric distribution of effector molecules in dividing CD8+ T cells. They propose uneven mitotic repartition of pre-packaged lytic components as a mechanism generating non-hereditary functional heterogeneity in CTL.

Data availability

All data generated or analysed during this study are included in the manuscript and supporting files.

Article and author information

Author details

  1. Fanny Lafouresse

    INSERM U1037, Centre de Recherche en Cancérologie de Toulouse, Toulouse, France
    For correspondence
    fanny.lafouresse@inserm.fr
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
    ORCID icon "This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0001-6572-8631

  2. Romain Jugele

    INSERM U1037, Centre de Recherche en Cancérologie de Toulouse, Toulouse, France
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.

  3. Sabina Müller

    INSERM U1037, Centre de Recherche en Cancérologie de Toulouse, Toulouse, France
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.

  4. Marine Doineau

    Mathematics of decision making and statistics, Toulouse School of Economics, UMR 5604, Toulouse, France
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.

  5. Valérie Duplan-Eche

    INSERM, UMR1043, Centre de Physiopathologie de Toulouse Purpan, Toulouse, France
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.

  6. Eric Espinosa

    INSERM U1037, Centre de Recherche en Cancérologie de Toulouse, Toulouse, France
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.

  7. Marie-Pierre Puissegur

    INSERM U1037, Centre de Recherche en Cancérologie de Toulouse, Toulouse, France
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.

  8. Sébastien Gadat

    Mathematics of decision making and statistics, Toulouse School of Economics, UMR 5604, Toulouse, France
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.

  9. Salvatore Valitutti

    INSERM U1037, Centre de Recherche en Cancérologie de Toulouse, Toulouse, France
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.

Funding

Laboratoire d'Excellence Toulouse Cancer (ANR11-LABEX)

  • Salvatore Valitutti

Region occitanie (RCLE R14007BB,671 34 No 12052802,and RBIO R15070BB,No 14054342)

  • Salvatore Valitutti

Fondation Toulouse Cancer Santé (2014CS044)

  • Salvatore Valitutti

Ligue Contre le Cancer (équipe labellisée)

  • Salvatore Valitutti

Ligue Contre le Cancer (4th year phD)

  • Romain Jugele

Bristol-Myers Squibb (No CA184-575)

  • Salvatore Valitutti

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

Ethics

Human subjects: Buffy coats of healthy donors were obtained through the Etablissement Français du Sang (EFS, Toulouse, France). Blood samples were collected and processed following standard ethical procedures (Helsinki 433 protocol), after obtaining written informed consent from each donor and approval by the French Ministry of the Research (transfer agreement AC-2014-2384). Approbation by the ethical department of the French Ministry of the Research for the preparation and conservation of cell lines and clones starting from healthy donor human blood samples has been obtained (authorization No DC-2018-3223).

Copyright

© 2021, Lafouresse 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.

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  1. Fanny Lafouresse
  2. Romain Jugele
  3. Sabina Müller
  4. Marine Doineau
  5. Valérie Duplan-Eche
  6. Eric Espinosa
  7. Marie-Pierre Puissegur
  8. Sébastien Gadat
  9. Salvatore Valitutti
(2021)
Stochastic asymmetric repartition of lytic machinery in dividing CD8+ T cells generates heterogeneous killing behavior
eLife 10:e62691.
https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.62691

Share this article

https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.62691

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