Quantitative Measurement of Naive T cell Association with Dendritic Cells, FRCs, and Blood Vessels in Lymph Nodes

Authors

Humayra Tasnim, University of New MexicoFollow
George M. Fricke, University of New Mexico
Janie R. Byrum, University of New MexicoFollow
Justyna O. Sotiris, University of New MexicoFollow
Judy L. Cannon, University of New MexicoFollow
Melanie Moses

Document Type

Dataset

Publication Date

Summer 7-2018

Abstract

T cells play a vital role in eliminating pathogenic infections. To activate, naive T cells search lymph nodes(LNs) for dendritic cells(DCs). Positioning and movement of T cells in LNs is influenced by chemokines including CCL21 as well as multiple cell types and structures in the LNs. Previous studies have suggested that T cell positioning facilitates DC colocalization leading to T: DC interaction. Despite the influence chemical signals, cells, and structures can have on naive T cell positioning, relatively few studies have used quantitative measures to directly compare T cell interactions with key cell types. Here we use Pearson correlation coefficient (PCC) and normalized mutual information (NMI) to quantify the extent to which naive T cells spatially associate with DC, fibroblastic reticular cells (FRC), and blood vessels in LN. We measure spatial associations in physiologically relevant regions. We find that T cells are more spatially associated with FRCs than with their ultimate targets, DCs. We also investigated the role of a key motility chemokine receptor, CCR7, on T cell colocalization with DCs. We find that CCR7 deficiency does not decrease naive T cells association with DCs, in fact, CCR7-/- T cells show slightly higher DC association compared with wild type T cells. By revealing these associations, we gain insights into factors that drive T cell localization, potentially affecting the timing of productive T: DC interactions and T cell activation.

DOI (article): https://doi.org/10.3389/fimmu.2018.01571

The code used in this paper is publicly available at https://github.com/BCLab-UNM/NMIFrontiers2018.

Publisher

Frontiers Media SA

Publication Title

Frontiers in Immunology

Volume

9

DOI

https://doi.org/10.25844/7rmz-ks75

Language (ISO)

English

Keywords

Mutual Information, T cells, Dendritic Cells, FRCs, HEV, CCR7, Lymph Nodes

Recommended Citation

Tasnim, Humayra; George M. Fricke; Janie R. Byrum; Justyna O. Sotiris; Judy L. Cannon; and Melanie Moses. "Quantitative Measurement of Naive T cell Association with Dendritic Cells, FRCs, and Blood Vessels in Lymph Nodes." Frontiers in Immunology , (2018). doi:https://doi.org/10.25844/7rmz-ks75.

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.