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Clonal Culture Models of T Cell Senescence

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Handbook of Immunosenescence

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Abstract

The ability to culture T cells long-term first became a reality after the discovery of T cell growth factor in the late 1970s. Using interleukin 2 (IL 2), as it is now known, normal human T lymphocytes can now be cultured for extended periods allowing for them to be cloned and monoclonal populations to be grown up to usable amounts for experimentation. This still cannot be achieved with other normal immune cells such as B cells or macrophages, which can only be cultured long term after transformation. This chapter considers clonal T cell populations as models of immune aging. T cell clones may be derived from younger or older, healthy or frail subjects, centenarians, T cell precursors, and a variety of other sources. Their lifespan in culture can be determined under different conditions and progressive changes occurring over time can be investigated. Analogous to the large body of work on fibroblast senescence in vitro, T cell clones may provide models for events occurring in vivo and provide a test bed for certain interventions to restore appropriate immune function.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Center for Medical Research (ZMF), University of Tubingen Medical School, Tübingen, Germany

    Graham Pawelec

  2. School of Science and Technology, College of Arts and Science, Nottingham Trent University, Nottingham, UK

    Graham Pawelec & Yvonne Barnett

  3. OHB System AG, Bremen, Germany

    Jürgen Kempf

  4. Singapore Immunology Network (SIgN), Agency for Science Technology and Research (A*STAR), Biopolis, Singapore

    Anis Larbi

Authors
  1. Graham Pawelec
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  2. Jürgen Kempf
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  3. Anis Larbi
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  4. Yvonne Barnett
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Graham Pawelec .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Division of Geriatrics Research Center on Aging, University of Sherbrooke Dept. of Medicine, Sherbrooke, Québec, Canada

    Tamas Fulop

  2. Dept of Experimental Pathology, University of Bologna, Bologna, Italy

    Claudio Franceschi

  3. Institute for Health and Life Sciences, Tokyo, Japan

    Katsuiku Hirokawa

  4. Center for Medical Research, University of Tübingen, Tübingen, Germany

    Graham Pawelec

Section Editor information

  1. Research Center on Aging, Department of Medicine, Immunology Graduate Programme, Faculty of Medicine, University of Sherbrooke, Sherbrooke, Quebec, Canada

    Tamas Fulop

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Pawelec, G., Kempf, J., Larbi, A., Barnett, Y. (2018). Clonal Culture Models of T Cell Senescence. In: Fulop, T., Franceschi, C., Hirokawa, K., Pawelec, G. (eds) Handbook of Immunosenescence. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-64597-1_5-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-64597-1_5-1

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  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-64597-1

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-64597-1

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