Splenic CD4+ and CD8+ T Cells from Influenza Immune Mice Concurrently Produce in Vitro IL2, IL4, and IFN-gamma

The cytokine responses exerted by virus-primed spleen T cells upon in vitro restimulation were studied. Spleen cells obtained from mice injected intraperitoneally with A/PR8 (H1N1) influenza virus (PR8) were restimulated in vitro with UV-inactivated PR8 virus. The percentage of both CD4+ and CD8+ T cells producing IL2, IL4, or IFN-gamma was assayed at the single cell level by flow cytometric analysis of intracytoplasmic cytokine content. In parallel, the levels of the different cytokines in spleen cell culture supernatants were quantitated by enzyme linked immunosorbent assay. The results showed that in vitro virus restimulation of immune spleen cells induced the concurrent increase, in both CD4+ and CD8+ T cells, of the frequency of IL2-, IFN-gamma-, and IL4-producing cells. The frequency of IFN-gamma-producing T cells was found to be significantly higher in CD8+ T cells. Significant levels of the three cytokines were also detected in the culture supernatants. These data suggest that both CD4+ and CD8+ T cells play an important role in cytokine response to virus infection and that the synthesis and secretion of antiviral and regulatory cytokines is not mutually exclusive either between or within the two T cell subsets. The results of the experiments also indicated that the virus restimulation did not induce a dominant type 1 or type 2 cytokine response.