Tissue-specific clonal selection and differentiation of CD4⁺ T cells during infection.

ABSTRACT: Pathogen-specific CD4⁺ T cells undergo dynamic expansion and contraction during infection, ultimately generating memory clones that shape the subsequent immune responses. However, the influence of distinct tissue environments on the differentiation and clonal selection of polyclonal T cells remains unclear, primarily because of the technical challenges in tracking these cells in vivo. To address this question, we generated Tracking Recently Activated Cell Kinetics (TRACK) mice, a dual-recombinase fate-mapping system that enables precise spatial and temporal labeling of recently activated CD4⁺ T cells. Using TRACK mice during influenza infection, we observed organ-specific clonal selection and transcriptional differentiation in the lungs, mediastinal lymph nodes (medLN

SUBMITTER: Parsa R 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12407765 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature