Vaccine immunity to pathogenic fungi overcomes requirement for CD4 help.

2003 AUG 13 - (NewsRx.com & NewsRx.net) -- Vaccine immunity to pathogenic fungi overcomes the requirement for CD4 help in exogenous antigen presentation to CD8+ T cells.

"Systemic fungal infections with primary and opportunistic pathogens have become increasingly common and represent a growing health menace in patients with AIDS and other immune deficiencies. T lymphocyte immunity, in particular the CD4+ Th 1 cells, is considered the main defense against these pathogens, and their absence is associated with increased susceptibility. It would seem illogical then to propose vaccinating these vulnerable patients against fungal infections," researchers in the United States report.

"We report here that CD4+ T cells are dispensable for vaccine-induced resistance against experimental fungal pulmonary infections with two agents, Blastomyces dermatitidis, an extracellular pathogen, and Histoplasma capsulatum, a facultative intracellular pathogen," stated Marcel Wuthrich and colleagues at the Universities of Wisconsin and Cincinnati. "In the absence of T helper cells, exogenous fungal antigens activated memory CD8+ cells in a major histocompatibility complex class I-restricted manner and CD8+ T cell-derived cytokines tumor necrosis factor alpha, interferon gamma, and granulocyte/macrophage colony-stimulating factor-mediated durable vaccine immunity."

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