Abstract
Development of severe infection and secondary complications, despite previous exposure to or vaccination against influenza virus, leads to increased mortality in the elderly. Improved vaccines, designed based on understanding of the differences in the immune responses of elderly people as compared to young people, inducing universal protection to all influenza virus strains are needed. We have used several approaches to examine phenotype and function of influenza‐specific CD4+ and CD8+ T cells as well as the breadth of the T cell response to influenza virus between young and aged individuals. Using MHC class I tetramers we determined relationships between the total number of influenza‐specific CD8+ T cells and their ability to produce effector cytokines, or proliferate, upon in vitro restimulation to examine whether there are differences in CD8+ T cells from aged and young individuals. We are examining how functional aspects of CD4+ and CD8+ T cells from young and aged individual correlate with inhibitory receptor and cell senescence marker expression. We will also evaluate the ability of inhibitory and costimulatory pathways to modify those functions. Other differences in phenotype and function of antiviral T cells between young and elderly individuals must be examined to determine how these differences may affect the quality of virus‐specific immunity in aged individuals.
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