{"doi":"10.3389/fimmu.2022.867962","title":"HSV-2-Specific Human Female Reproductive Tract Tissue Resident Memory T Cells Recognize Diverse HSV Antigens","abstract":"Antigen-specific T RM persist and protect against skin or female reproductive tract (FRT) HSV infection. As the pathogenesis of HSV differs between humans and model organisms, we focus on humans with well-characterized recurrent genital HSV-2 infection. Human CD8+ T RM persisting at sites of healed human HSV-2 lesions have an activated phenotype but it is unclear if T RM can be cultivated in vitro . We recovered HSV-specific T RM from genital skin and ectocervix biopsies, obtained after recovery from recurrent genital HSV-2, using ex vivo activation by viral antigen. Up to several percent of local T cells were HSV-reactive ex vivo. CD4 and CD8 T cell lines were up to 50% HSV-2-specific after sorting-based enrichment. CD8 T RM displayed HLA-restricted reactivity to specific HSV-2 peptides with high functional avidities. Reactivity to defined peptides persisted locally over several month and was quite subject-specific. CD4 T RM derived from biopsies, and from an extended set of cervical cytobrush specimens, also recognized diverse HSV-2 antigens and peptides. Overall we found that HSV-2-specific T RM are abundant in the FRT between episodes of recurrent genital herpes and maintain competency for expansion. Mucosal sites are accessible for clinical monitoring during immune interventions such as therapeutic vaccination.","journal":"Frontiers in Immunology","year":2022,"id":247398,"datarank":0.5289540786924243,"base_score":3.5263605246161616,"endowment":3.5263605246161616,"self_citation_contribution":0.5289540786924243,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.5289540786924243,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":33,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9556,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2022-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":431161,"name":"Lichun Dong","orcid":null,"position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":294665,"name":"Lichen Jing","orcid":"0000-0002-5938-4171","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":430028,"name":"Kerry J. Laing","orcid":"0000-0001-9245-5325","position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":672220,"name":"Jia Zhu","orcid":"0000-0002-8676-5105","position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":672219,"name":"Lei Jin","orcid":"0000-0002-7841-7266","position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":296619,"name":"Stacy Selke","orcid":null,"position":6,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":294671,"name":"Anna Wald","orcid":"0000-0003-3486-6438","position":7,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":695729,"name":"Dana Varon","orcid":null,"position":8,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":301546,"name":"Meei‐Li Huang","orcid":"0000-0003-2058-2776","position":9,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":473787,"name":"Christine Johnston","orcid":"0000-0002-3073-0843","position":10,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":96348,"name":"Lawrence Corey","orcid":"0000-0002-2179-2436","position":11,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":645045,"name":"Christine M. Posavad","orcid":"0000-0002-5641-3934","position":12,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":294672,"name":"David M. Koelle","orcid":"0000-0003-1255-9023","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":114,"raw_metadata":{"citation_network_status":"fetched"},"created_at":"2026-07-19T00:23:53.369530Z","pmid":"35432373","pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}