In unimmunized mice, 4–1BBL is expressed on CD11c+ MHC II− cells, however, only a small fraction of adoptively transferred CD8+ memory phenotype cells were found in contact with CD11c+ cells, making it difficult to evaluate their importance. We also detected 4–1BBL on Gr1lo CD11b+ F4/80+ MHC-IIlo CD11c− cells from the BM of unimmunized mice, thus this population could be the radiosensitive cell that contributes 4–1BBL to the CD8+ T cells. Previous studies have established that 4–1BBL is required for the maintenance of influenza-specific CD8+ T cells between find more 3 and 6 weeks post infection with influenza A/HKx31 virus, a time when this virus has been fully cleared

from the host [28]. Further studies, using adoptive selleck transfer of TCR transgenic CD8+ OT-I memory T cells confirmed this role for 4–1BBL in the antigen-independent maintenance of memory CD8+ T cells and inferred that this was likely due to effects of 4–1BB signaling on survival rather than trafficking or cell division [29]. Here, we have provided evidence that an αβ T-cell must express 4–1BB for maximal recovery of CD8+ memory T cells. As 4–1BBL affects the CD8+ but not the CD4 response to influenza virus [28, 40] and 4–1BB is expressed on resting CD8+ memory but not CD4+ memory T cells

in the BM of unimmunized mice (Fig. 2), these data argue that the effects of 4–1BBL are likely through direct effects on CD8+ T cells in the BM. The association of transferred Red fluorescent memory T cells with the stromal IMP dehydrogenase cells was not affected by 4–1BBL-deficiency. Thus, although 4–1BBL affects the number of T cells recovered in the BM when assayed after 3 weeks [29], it does not appear

to affect the positioning of the memory T cells in these short-term assays. This is not surprising, as 4–1BBL is not known as a cell adhesion molecule, and its effects on T-cell survival would not be expected to affect T-cell recovery within the 24 h of our microscopy study. PCR analysis of sorted VCAM-1+ and VCAM-1− stroma showed preferential expression of CCL19 on the VCAM-1+ as compared with VCAM-1− stroma, consistent with a role for chemokines in attracting the CD8+ T cells to the VCAM-1+ stroma in the BM [7]. We also found CXCL12 in the cultured stromal cells. The association of the memory T cells with the VCAM-1+ cells in the BM is also consistent with the observation that memory T cells express three to four times the level of VLA-4 as compared with that of naïve T cells [41]. A caveat to these experiments is that VCAM-1+ cells are highly abundant in the BM and we have not shown that the proximity of the VCAM-1+ cells to the adoptively transferred memory T cells results in a productive interaction. Nevertheless, these data indicate that it is plausible that 4–1BBL+ VCAM-1+ cells could provide a signal to the CD8+ 4–1BB+ memory cells found in the BM.