• Pasquine Saule, Jacques Trauet, Virginie Dutriez, Véronique Lekeux, Jean-Paul Dessaint, and Myriam Labalette.
• Laboratoire d'Immunologie, EA 2686, CHU and Université de Lille 2, 59045 Lille, France.
• Mech. Ageing Dev. 2006 Mar 1; 127 (3): 274-81.

AbstractMemory T cells can be classified as central memory (T(CM), CD45RA(neg)CCR7(+)), effector memory (T(EM), CD45RA(neg)CCR7(neg)), and terminally differentiated cells (T(TD), CD45RA(+)CCR7(neg)) with different homing and effector capacities. In 101 healthy subjects aged from 5 to 96 years, distinct dynamics were evidenced between circulating CD4(+) and CD8(+) T cell populations. Naive CD4(+) and CD8(+) T cells decreased linearly with age, CD8(+) twice more rapidly. Memory cells outnumbered naive cells on average at 37.4 in the CD4(+) and 29.5 years of age in the CD8(+) pool. CD4(+) T(CM) and T(EM) cells were positively correlated and increased linearly at a similar rate with age, while CD4(+) T(TD) remained rare. CD8(+) T(EM) and T(TD) accumulated linearly with age, while T(CM) increased only slightly, and each memory subset was negatively correlated to the two others. Almost all CD8(+) T(TD) and some CD8(+) T(EM) had lost CD28 expression. Despite different dynamics, each individual CD4(+) naive and memory subset was correlated to the synonymous CD8(+) subset. Half of the subjects aged 65 years or older were characterized by extremely reduced CD8(+) naive and increased CD8(+) T(TD) cell counts, which could indicate an acceleration of the decay of the immune system from this age onward.

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