Celiac disease is an immune-mediated intestinal disorder that results from loss of oral tolerance (LOT) to dietary gluten. Reovirus elicits inflammatory Th1 cells and suppresses Treg responses to dietary antigen in a strain-dependent manner. Strain type 1 Lang (T1L) breaks oral tolerance, while strain type 3 Dearing reassortant virus (T3D-RV) does not. We discovered that intestinal infection by T1L in mice leads to the recruitment and activation of NK cells in mesenteric lymph nodes (MLNs) in a type I IFN–dependent manner. Once activated following infection, NK cells produce type II IFN and contribute to IFN-stimulated gene expression in the MLNs, which in turn induces inflammatory DC and T cell responses. Immune depletion of NK cells impairs T1L-induced LOT to newly introduced food antigen. These studies indicate that NK cells modulate the response to dietary antigen in the presence of a viral infection.
Pamela H. Brigleb, Elaine Kouame, Kay L. Fiske, Gwen M. Taylor, Kelly Urbanek, Luzmariel Medina Sanchez, Reinhard Hinterleitner, Bana Jabri, Terence S. Dermody
NK cells are dispensable for viral clearance but contribute to IFN-mediated inflammatory responses that are associated with loss of tolerance to dietary antigen.