Coxsackievirus infection induces direct pancreatic β-cell killing but poor anti-viral CD8+ T-cell responses

Abstract

Coxsackievirus B (CVB) infection of pancreatic {beta} cells is associated with {beta}-cell autoimmunity. We investigated how CVB impacts human {beta} cells and anti-CVB T-cell responses. {beta} cells were efficiently infected by CVB in vitro, downregulated HLA Class I and presented few, selected HLA-bound viral peptides. Circulating CD8+ T cells from CVB-seropositive individuals recognized only a fraction of these peptides, and only another sub-fraction was targeted by effector/memory T cells that expressed the exhaustion marker PD-1. T cells recognizing a CVB epitope cross-reacted with the {beta}-cell antigen GAD. Infected {beta} cells, which formed filopodia to propagate infection, were more efficiently killed by CVB than by CVB-reactive T cells. Thus, our in-vitro and ex-vivo data highlight limited T-cell responses to CVB, supporting the rationale for CVB vaccination trials for type 1 diabetes prevention. CD8+ T cells recognizing structural and non-structural CVB epitopes provide biomarkers to differentially follow response to infection and vaccination.