12.00pm Monday, 10 April
Room 208
2nd floor, Microbiology Building
720 Cumberland St
Dr Kylie M. Quinn
Department of Biomedical Sciences, Monash University, Australia
Ageing undermines primary responses in cytotoxic CD8 T cells, in part, through direct effects on naïve CD8 T cells that decrease their number, increase the proportion of semi-differentiated “virtual memory” cells and decrease their functionality. To understand the molecular basis of these defects, we tracked the loss of naïve antigen-specific populations over the course of ageing and defined functional, metabolic and transcriptional differences across naïve and memory CD8 T cells from young and aged mice. These data highlighted that the intrinsic loss of function in aged naïve CD8 T cells associated with expression of senescence markers, with a decreased ability to engage glycolysis, enter cell cycle or engage TCR signaling and with enhanced survival. Thus, primary aged CD8 T cell responses are undermined by an accumulation of senescent cells and we aim to employ strategies that target these cells for recovery of function or selective removal to improve cellular immunity in the elderly.
This seminar is kindly sponsored by: BD Biosciences
