| Description |
T cell activation is a key event in adaptive immunity. However, the effects of cell status, cell heterogeneity and cellular communication on T cell activation have not been systematically analyzed. We found resting CD4 T cells differentiated into conventional effector T cells (conv TEFF), cytokines high TEFF (cytohi TEFF), proliferation TEFF (prolif TEFF) and heat shock proteins (HSPs) high expressed T (HSPhi T) upon anti-CD3/CD28 stimulation. HSPhi T cells were mainly projected on conv TEFF when UMAP were performed using genes excluding HSPs, indicting HSPhi are similar to conv TEFF except highly expressed HSPs for responses to cellular stress. We called the stimulated T cells overlapped with resting T cells on UMAP as inert T. Different from resting T cells, inert T showed intermediate feature of T cell activation including expression of cytokines and activated T specific marker genes. CXCR4 is moderately expressed in inert T, comparing its high expression in resting T and low expression in activated T. Interestingly, CXCR4low T express CD25 higher and have more T cell aggregation than CXCR4hi T, indicating CXCR4low T cells responded to stimulation much quicker and stronger than CXCR4hi T. Resting CD4 T cells were more likely to differentiate into cytohi TEFF and were less likely to differentiate into HSPhi T and Th0 in the presence of CD8 T cells. Resting CD4 T cells respond to anti-CD3/CD28 differently from either CD4 TN or CD4 TM, due to difference of cell states, cell-cell communications and specific microenvironment. |
