Bulletin of the American Physical Society
2023 APS March Meeting
Volume 68, Number 3
Las Vegas, Nevada (March 5-10)
Virtual (March 20-22); Time Zone: Pacific Time
Session K68: Physics of Immune Systems
3:00 PM–6:00 PM,
Tuesday, March 7, 2023
Room: Room 420
Sponsoring
Unit:
GMED
Chair: Robert H. Austin
Abstract: K68.00002 : Spatiotemporal Dynamics of Immune Cells in the Spinal Cord During CNS Autoimmunity
3:36 PM–4:12 PM
Presenter:
Shivashankar Othy
(School of Medicine, University of California Irvine)
Author:
Shivashankar Othy
(School of Medicine, University of California Irvine)
Effector T (Teff) cells potentiate CNS autoimmunity, whereas regulatory T (Treg) cells limit autoimmunity. Using a combination of multiphoton imaging and transgenic mice in an MS-like disease model called experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis, we provide new insights into the cellular dynamics of Teffs, Tregs, and APCs in the spinal cord. Despite similar cell speeds, Teff and Treg cells follow divergent motility patterns. Teff cells actively migrate to spread across the CNS. In contrast, Tregs remain organized as discrete clusters. Tregs exhibit an unusual repetitive scanning behavior, allowing rapidly motile Tregs to re-engage their targets constantly. We postulate that this motility behavior of Tregs limits Teff cell activation by destabilizing Teff cell interactions with local APCs. We demonstrate that the arrival of Tregs in the CNS coincides with diminished activation of Teff cells and a partial recovery from disease; depletion of Treg cells quadruples the number of Teff cells within days. We provide evidence that Treg cells interfere with proximal signaling in Teff cells. Altogether, our results provide new insights into the spatial organization and cellular interactions of immune cells that play a critical role in CNS autoimmunity.
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