In Situ Peptide-MHC-II Tetramer Staining of Antigen-Specific CD4+ T Cells in Tissues

PLoS One. 2015 Jun 11;10(6):e0128862. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0128862. eCollection 2015.

Abstract

The invention of peptide-MHC-tetramer technology to label antigen-specific T cells has led to an enhanced understanding of T lymphocyte biology. Here we describe the development of an in situ pMHC-II tetramer staining method to visualize antigen-specific CD4+ T cells in tissues. This method complements other methods developed that similarly use MHC class II reagents to stain antigen-specific CD4+ T cells in situ. In this study, we used group A streptococcus (GAS) expressing a surrogate peptide (2W) to inoculate C57BL/6 mice, and used fresh nasal-associated lymphoid tissues (NALT) in optimizing the in situ staining of 2W:I-Ab specific CD4+ T cells. The results showed 2W:I-Ab tetramer-binding CD4+ T cells in GAS-2W but not GAS infected mice. This method holds promise to be broadly applicable to study the localization, abundance, and phenotype of antigen-specific CD4+ T cells in undisrupted tissues.

Publication types

  • Research Support, N.I.H., Extramural
  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Amino Acid Sequence
  • Animals
  • CD4-Positive T-Lymphocytes / cytology
  • CD4-Positive T-Lymphocytes / immunology
  • CD4-Positive T-Lymphocytes / metabolism
  • Epitopes, T-Lymphocyte / chemistry
  • Epitopes, T-Lymphocyte / immunology*
  • Epitopes, T-Lymphocyte / metabolism
  • Female
  • Mice
  • Mice, Inbred C57BL
  • Microscopy, Fluorescence
  • Peptides / chemistry
  • Peptides / immunology*
  • Peptides / metabolism
  • Streptococcal Infections / microbiology
  • Streptococcal Infections / pathology
  • Streptococcal Infections / veterinary
  • Streptococcus pyogenes / metabolism
  • Streptococcus pyogenes / physiology

Substances

  • Epitopes, T-Lymphocyte
  • Peptides
  • polyglycine