Analysis of chemokine receptor CCR7 expression on porcine blood T lymphocytes using a CCL19-Fc fusion protein

The chemokine receptor CCR7 has been a useful marker for the characterization of human and mouse T cell subsets. We have produced the porcine CCR7 ligand CCL19 fused to the human IgG1 Fc fragment, and used it to analyse CCR7 expression in swine. CCL19-Fc bound to and induced the migration of cells expressing porcine CCR7 but not of untransfected cells, corroborating its specificity. On blood lymphocytes, CCL19-Fc labelled the majority of CD4(+) T cells expressing the 2E3 marker, associated with a nave phenotype, whereas the 2E3(-) cells were mostly negative. Among CD8(+) T cells CCL19-Fc labelled two subsets: one, CD8 beta(hi) CD11a(lo) CD45RA(+), perforin(-/lo), which produced low amounts of IFN-gamma after stimulation, which might correspond to nave cells; and a second small population of CD8 beta(lo) cells which expressed high levels of CD11a, and were mostly CD45RA(-), a phenotype which resembles that or human central memory T cells. (C) 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.