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Infection and Immunity, October 2002, p. 5512-5520, Vol. 70, No. 10
0019-9567/02/$04.00+0 DOI: 10.1128/IAI.70.10.5512-5520.2002
Copyright © 2002, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.
Department of Immunology, Division of Investigative Science, Faculty of Medicine,1 Department of Biological Sciences, Faculty of Life Sciences, Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine, London, United Kingdom,2 Division of Cancer Research, Department of Pathology, University of Zürich, Zürich, Switzerland3
Received 26 April 2002/ Returned for modification 11 June 2002/ Accepted 5 July 2002
It is widely accepted that a strong Th2 response is responsible for nonhealing Leishmania major infections in BALB/c mice. This Th2 response has been thoroughly documented by measuring the levels of Th2 cytokines produced by CD4+ T cells present in the lymphoid organs by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay and PCR. However, the cytokine profile of L. major-specific Th2 cells has never been determined. In this study, we used the recently described Th2 marker T1/ST2 to characterize Th2 cells during the course of nonhealing L. major infection. We analyzed the intracellular cytokine profile of CD4+ T1/ST2+ T cells and showed that they clearly displayed a Th2 phenotype, as they expressed interleukin 4 (IL-4), IL-10, and IL-5. In addition, we detected another population of Th2 cells among the CD4+ T1/ST2- T cells that expressed IL-4 and IL-10 but excluded IL-5. In summary, we show here that two type 2 subpopulations are present in the lymphoid organs of L. major-infected BALB/c mice; Th2 cells from both subsets expressed IL-4 and IL-10, but they could be distinguished by their expression of IL-5 and T1/ST2.
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