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. 2019 Apr 12;10:797. doi: 10.3389/fimmu.2019.00797

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Copyright © 2019 Bucher, Schlundt, Wulsten, Sass, Wendler, Ellinghaus, Thiele, Seemann, Willie, Volk, Duda and Schmidt-Bleek.

This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

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Adaptive immunity changes level of experience among housing conditions (SPF vs. non-SPF) and aging. (A) Naïve level of CD4+ and CD8+ T cells diminished and the memory level increased with aging. Exposing the animals to antigens boosts the memory formation significantly. (B) Classification of T cells into central memory (T_CM) and effector memory (T_EM) revealed a different picture for CD4+ and CD8+ T cells: CD8+ T cells increased both compartments under non-SPF conditions, whereas the CD4+ central memory T cells were constant among ages and housing conditions. Keeping mice under SPF conditions oppressed the effect of memory formation. (C) CD8+ memory T cells differ in the recall efficiency after antigen encounter. Strong responder CD8+ memory T cells were not affected by non-SPF housing, whereas intermediate responder could only be found under non-SPF conditions (intermediate responder are proven to show fast proliferation and vast cytokine production). The low responder fraction diminished further under non-SPF conditions compared to SPF housing. N = 6 animals per age group and housing conditions, (A,B) shows median with interquartile range, (C) shows boxplot distribution with median, Mann Whitney U-test, ^*p < 0.05.