TY - JOUR
T1 - Natural Microbial Exposure from the Earliest Natural Time Point Enhances Immune Development by Expanding Immune Cell Progenitors and Mature Immune Cells
AU - Burger, Sarah
AU - Stenger, Terran
AU - Pierson, Mark
AU - Sridhar, Adhvaith
AU - Huggins, Matthew A.
AU - Kucaba, Tamara A.
AU - Griffith, Thomas S.
AU - Hamilton, Sara E.
AU - Schuldt, Nathaniel J.
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
Copyright © 2023 by The American Association of Immunologists, Inc. 0022-1767/23/$37.50.
PY - 2023/6/1
Y1 - 2023/6/1
N2 - Microbial experience fundamentally shapes immunity, particularly during the perinatal period when the immune system is underdeveloped, and novel microbial encounters are common. Most animal models are raised in specific pathogen-free (SPF) conditions with relatively uniform microbial communities. How SPF housing conditions alter early-life immune development relative to natural microbial exposure (NME) has not been thoroughly investigated. In this article, we compare immune development in SPF-raised mice with mice born from immunologically experienced mothers in microbially diverse environments. NME induced broad immune cell expansion, including naive cells, suggesting mechanisms besides activation-induced proliferation contribute to the increase in immune cell numbers. We found NME conditions also expanded immune cell progenitor cell populations in the bone marrow, suggesting microbial experience enhances immune development at the earliest stages of immune cell differentiation. Multiple immune functions characteristically impaired in infants were also enhanced by NME, including T cell memory and Th1 polarization, B cell class switching and Ab production, proinflammatory cytokine expression, and bacterial clearance after Listeria monocytogenes challenge. Collectively, our studies reveal numerous impairments in immune development in SPF conditions relative to natural immune development.
AB - Microbial experience fundamentally shapes immunity, particularly during the perinatal period when the immune system is underdeveloped, and novel microbial encounters are common. Most animal models are raised in specific pathogen-free (SPF) conditions with relatively uniform microbial communities. How SPF housing conditions alter early-life immune development relative to natural microbial exposure (NME) has not been thoroughly investigated. In this article, we compare immune development in SPF-raised mice with mice born from immunologically experienced mothers in microbially diverse environments. NME induced broad immune cell expansion, including naive cells, suggesting mechanisms besides activation-induced proliferation contribute to the increase in immune cell numbers. We found NME conditions also expanded immune cell progenitor cell populations in the bone marrow, suggesting microbial experience enhances immune development at the earliest stages of immune cell differentiation. Multiple immune functions characteristically impaired in infants were also enhanced by NME, including T cell memory and Th1 polarization, B cell class switching and Ab production, proinflammatory cytokine expression, and bacterial clearance after Listeria monocytogenes challenge. Collectively, our studies reveal numerous impairments in immune development in SPF conditions relative to natural immune development.
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U2 - 10.4049/JIMMUNOL.2300061
DO - 10.4049/JIMMUNOL.2300061
M3 - Article
C2 - 37074206
AN - SCOPUS:85159735259
SN - 0022-1767
VL - 210
SP - 1740
EP - 1751
JO - Journal of Immunology
JF - Journal of Immunology
IS - 11
ER -