| 1. |
- Guldevall, Karolin, 1981-
(författare)
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Single Cell Investigations of the Functional Heterogeneity Within Immune Cell Populations : a Microchip-based Study
- 2014
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Immune cell populations are constantly divided into smaller and smaller subsets defined by newly emerging cellular markers. However, there is a growing awareness of the functional heterogeneities in between cells even within small populations, in addition to the heterogeneity over time. One may ask whether a population is correctly defined only by cellular markers or if the functionality should be regarded as well? Many of today’s techniques only measure at the population level, giving an average estimate of the behavior of that pool of cells, but failing to detect rare possibly important events. Thus, high-throughput experimental approaches to analyze single cells over time are required to address cellular heterogeneity.Progress in the fields of microfabrication, microscopy and computing have paved the way for increasingly efficient tools for studies on the single cell level, and a variety of devices have been described by others. However, few of them are suitable for long-term imaging of dynamic events such as cell-cell interactions or migration. In addition, for efficient recording of many individual events it is desirable to scale down the cells’ interaction volume; not only to shorten the time to interaction, but also to increase the number of individual events in a given area; thereby pushing a screening approach.To address these questions, a complete microwell array system for imaging of immune cell responses with single-cell resolution was designed. The platform consists of a range of silicon-glass microchips with arrays of miniature wells for incubation of cells and a custom made holder that fits conventional microscopes. The device has been designed to allow cells to be kept viable for several days in the wells, to be easy to use and to allow high-resolution imaging. Five different designs were fabricated; all with a specific type of assay in mind, and were evaluated regarding biocompatibility and functionality. Here, the design aimed for screening applications is the main focus. In this approach a large amount, tens of thousands, of small wells are imaged two to three times: first directly post-seeding of effector and target cells to register the well’s content, and second after some time has passed to allow for cell-cell interactions. The final read-out is the number of killed target cells in each well, making an automatic cell counting protocol necessary in order to analyze the massive amount of data generated.We here show that our silicon microwell platform allows long-term studies with the possibility of both time-lapse and high-resolution imaging of a variety of immune cell behavior. Using both time-lapse imaging and the screening approach we confirmed and investigated immune cell heterogeneity within NK cell populations in regards to both cytotoxicity and migrational behavior. In addition, two different types of cytolytic behavior in NK cells, termed fast and slow killing, were described and evaluated in regards to dynamic parameters; like conjugation and attachment time. We could also quantify the type of cytolytic response in relation to serial killing NK cells, and saw that serial killing NK cells more often induced fast target cell death. Further investigations using the screening approach have shown that serial killing NK cells also differ from other NK cells in their morphology, being both larger and with a more elongated shape. So far the platform has been used to gain better understanding of some aspects of NK cell biology, but there is still much left to explore. With the addition of an automatic counting program, the large numbers of wells that can be simultaneously imaged will provide new statistical information and enable higher throughput.Altogether, our family of techniques enables novel types of cellular imaging assays allowing data collection at a level of resolution not previously obtained – this was shown to be important for performing basic cell biological studies, but may also prove valuable in the proposed future medical applications such as adoptive cell therapy and stem cell transplantation.
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| 2. |
- Prager, Isabel, et al.
(författare)
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NK cells switch from granzyme B to death receptor–mediated cytotoxicity during serial killing
- 2019
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Ingår i: Journal of Experimental Medicine. - : Rockefeller University Press. - 0022-1007 .- 1540-9538. ; 7:9, s. 2113-2127
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- NK cells eliminate virus-infected and tumor cells by releasing cytotoxic granules containing granzyme B (GrzB) or by engaging death receptors that initiate caspase cascades. The orchestrated interplay between both cell death pathways remains poorly defined. Here we simultaneously measure the activities of GrzB and caspase-8 in tumor cells upon contact with human NK cells. We observed that NK cells switch from inducing a fast GrzB-mediated cell death in their first killing events to a slow death receptor–mediated killing during subsequent tumor cell encounters. Target cell contact reduced intracellular GrzB and perforin and increased surface-CD95L in NK cells over time, showing how the switch in cytotoxicity pathways is controlled. Without perforin, NK cells were unable to perform GrzB-mediated serial killing and only killed once via death receptors. In contrast, the absence of CD95 on tumor targets did not impair GrzB-mediated serial killing. This demonstrates that GrzB and death receptor–mediated cytotoxicity are differentially regulated during NK cell serial killing.
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| 3. |
- Sandoz, Patrick, et al.
(författare)
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Modulation of lytic molecules restrain serial killing in γδ T lymphocytes
- 2023
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Ingår i: Nature Communications. - : Springer Nature. - 2041-1723. ; 14:1
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- γδ T cells play a pivotal role in protection against various types of infections and tumours, from early childhood on and throughout life. They consist of several subsets characterised by adaptive and innate-like functions, with Vγ9Vδ2 being the largest subset in human peripheral blood. Although these cells show signs of cytotoxicity, their modus operandi remains poorly understood. Here we explore, using live single-cell imaging, the cytotoxic functions of γδ T cells upon interactions with tumour target cells with high temporal and spatial resolution. While γδ T cell killing is dominated by degranulation, the availability of lytic molecules appears tightly regulated in time and space. In particular, the limited co-occurrence of granzyme B and perforin restrains serial killing of tumour cells by γδ T cells. Thus, our data provide new insights into the cytotoxic arsenal and functions of γδ T cells, which may guide the development of more efficient γδ T cell based adoptive immunotherapies.
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| 4. |
- van Ooijen, Hanna, et al.
(författare)
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Distinct mechanistic responses in serial-killing NK cells during natural and antibody-dependent cytotoxicity
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Annan publikation (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Natural Killer (NK) cells are potent cytotoxic immune cells, yet the population exhibits a large phenotypical and functional heterogeneity. Here we investigated the mechanisms underlying NK cell serial killing during natural and antibody-dependent cellular cytotoxicity (ADCC). We leveraged on our microwell chip platform to relate cellular function with organelle content and intracellular protein expression, in individual NK cells. We observed that highly potent serial-killing NK cells more often deployed degranulation and induced necrosis, and that they were multifunctional, producing INF-γ and TNF-α. We probed for intrinsic differences between NK cells that performed serial killing compared to other NK cells, yet found no distinction in the migration dynamics, nor in the lysosomal and mitochondrial load of the cells. However, when measuring the calcium signaling of the cells in consecutive interactions, we revealed that serial-killing NK cells were able to maintain calcium signaling longer than cells that interrupted their killing sequence. By staining the cells at the end of the cytotoxicity assay, we found that NK cells that had stopped killing still showed clear intracellular expression of granzyme B-positive granules. Thus, it appears that decreased signaling rather than depletion of lytic cargo is the reason for NK cell exhaustion in our assay. Our results motivate exploring ways to enhance the signaling machinery in NK cells to achieve sustained functional responses.
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| 5. |
- Zhang, C., et al.
(författare)
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LIPG-promoted lipid storage mediates adaptation to oxidative stress in breast cancer
- 2019
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Ingår i: International Journal of Cancer. - : Wiley. - 0020-7136 .- 1097-0215. ; 145:4, s. 901-915
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Endothelial lipase (LIPG) is a cell surface associated lipase that displays phospholipase A1 activity towards phosphatidylcholine present in high‐density lipoproteins (HDL). LIPG was recently reported to be expressed in breast cancer and to support proliferation, tumourigenicity and metastasis. Here we show that severe oxidative stress leading to AMPK activation triggers LIPG upregulation, resulting in intracellular lipid droplet accumulation in breast cancer cells, which supports survival. Neutralizing oxidative stress abrogated LIPG upregulation and the concomitant lipid storage. In human breast cancer, high LIPG expression was observed in a limited subset of tumours and was significantly associated with shorter metastasis‐free survival in node‐negative, untreated patients. Moreover, expression of PLIN2 and TXNRD1 in these tumours indicated a link to lipid storage and oxidative stress. Altogether, our findings reveal a previously unrecognized role for LIPG in enabling oxidative stress‐induced lipid droplet accumulation in tumour cells that protects against oxidative stress, and thus supports tumour progression.
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