Exploring the dynamics and influencing factors of CD4 T cell activation using single-cell RNA-seq

Hui Li; Hongyi Liu; Yifei Liu; Xuefei Wang; Shiya Yu; Hongwen Huang; Xiangru Shen; Qi Zhang; Ni Hong; Wenfei Jin

doi:10.1016/j.isci.2023.107588

Exploring the dynamics and influencing factors of CD4 T cell activation using single-cell RNA-seq

iScience. 2023 Aug 9;26(9):107588. doi: 10.1016/j.isci.2023.107588. eCollection 2023 Sep 15.

Authors

Hui Li¹, Hongyi Liu¹, Yifei Liu¹, Xuefei Wang¹, Shiya Yu¹, Hongwen Huang¹, Xiangru Shen¹, Qi Zhang¹, Ni Hong¹, Wenfei Jin^{1

2}

Affiliations

¹ School of Life Sciences, Southern University of Science and Technology, Shenzhen 518055, China.
² CAS Key Laboratory of Computational Biology, Shanghai Institute of Nutrition and Health, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai 200031, China.

Abstract

T cell activation is a key event in adaptive immunity. However, the dynamics and influencing factors of T cell activation remain unclear. Here, we analyzed CD4 T cells that were stimulated with anti-CD3/CD28 under several conditions to explore the factors affecting T cell activation. We found a stimulated T subset (HSP^hi T) highly expressing heat shock proteins, which was derived from stimulated naive T. We identified and characterized inert T, a stimulated T cell subset in transitional state from resting T to activated T. Interestingly, resting CXCR4^low T responded to stimulation more efficiently than resting CXCR4^hi T. Furthermore, stimulation of CD4 T in the presence of CD8 T resulted in more effector T and more homogeneous expressions of CD25, supporting that presence of CD8 T reduces the extreme response of T cells, which can be explained by regulation of CD4 T activation through CD8 T-initiated cytokine signaling and FAS/FASLG signaling.

Keywords: Components of the immune system; Immune response; Specialized functions of cells; Transcriptomics.