Time course analyses of aging antiviral CD8+ memory T cells

The precise consequences for antiviral memory T cells (TM) generated early in life and allowed to age in the absence of pathogen persistence or potentially confounding heterologous infections remain to date largely unexplored. Here, we have employed microarray analyses to determine the gene expression profiles of LCMV-specific P14 CD8+ TM over a period of up to 400 days after an acute LCMV Armstrong infection. Congenic LCMV Armstrong-immune p14 chimeras were generated in a staggered fashion to allow for concurrent sample collection and processing of mice differing only in respect to the time after challenge (dpi: days post infection). Splenic CD90.1+ p14 TE (8 dpi) and TM (46, 156, 286 and 400 dpi) were magnetically pre-enriched from individual p14 chimeras (n=3-4) using an α-PE selection kit (EasySep, StemCell Technologies), and further purified by FACS-sorting of CD8+CD90.1+ cells (FACS Aria, BD Biosciences) achieving >99% purity.