Role of γδ T cells in turkey herpesvirus vaccine protection against Marek’s disease virus

TL;DR

This study shows that γδ T cells have a minor role in vaccine protection against a deadly chicken virus but greatly affect virus shedding.

Contribution

The study reveals the limited role of γδ T cells in turkey herpesvirus vaccine protection and their significant impact on virus shedding.

Findings

γδ T-cell-knockout chickens showed increased disease incidence after vaccination and MDV challenge.

Viral load in the spleen, skin, and dust was significantly higher in γδ T-cell-knockout chickens.

γδ T cells appear to have a minor role in vaccine protection but a major role in controlling virus shedding.

Abstract

γδ T cells are a highly abundant lymphocyte subset in chickens and play key roles in early immune responses to infection. It has been recently shown that γδ T cells restrict Marek’s disease virus (MDV) pathogenesis; however, it remained elusive if they play a role in vaccine protection. In this study, we vaccinated γδ T-cell-knockout chickens with the commercial turkey herpesvirus (HVT) vaccine and challenged them with very virulent MDV. The disease incidence was significantly increased in vaccinated chickens in the absence of γδ T cells. This increase was comparable to a previous study in unvaccinated γδ T-cell-knockout chickens, suggesting that γδ T cells only play a minor role in vaccine protection. Furthermore, the viral load in the spleen was significantly increased in the absence of γδ T cells. Interestingly, viral load in the skin and in dust shed by the animals was drastically increased, suggesting that the absence of γδ T cells affects MDV shedding. In addition, we quantified various immune cell subsets to determine if these could be responsible for the observed phenotypes. Together, our data indicate that γδ T cells only play a minor role in HVT-mediated protection, but their absence drastically affects shedding of this deadly pathogen in vaccinated animals.

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