Related articles:

• Deguine J, Breart B, Lemaître F, Di Santo J, Bousso P. (2010). Intravital Imaging Reveals Distinct Dynamics for NK Cells and CD8+ T Cells During Tumor Regression. Immunity, 33(4):632-644.

• Breart B, Lemaître F, Celli S, Bousso P (2008). Two-photon imaging of intratumoral CD8 T cell cytotoxic activity during adoptive T cell therapy in mice. J. Clin. Invest. 118(4):1390-1397.

Dynamics of Immune Responses Lab

Cytotoxic T cells and NK cells (CTLs) are key players of anti-tumor immune responses. Despite our fundamental knowledge on the interplay between the immune system and tumor microenvironments, we have a poor understanding on the efficiency with which intratumoral immune effectors find, interact and kill their targets. Intratumoral imaging provide the opportunity to better understand how these events occur and change during the course of tumor development and why immune responses often fail to eradicate tumors.

Infitration of cytotoxic T cells in solid tumors.
Tumor-specific CTLs (orange) migrating and interacting in a subcutaneous solid tumor. Tumor cells expressed a membrane YFP molecule. Click here to see the movie.

Killing of tumor cells by CTLs visualized using a FRET based probe for apoptosis.
The movie shows three examples of tumor cells undergoing apoptosis upon interaction with CTLs (red). Tumor cells expressed a FRET-based probe for caspase 3 activation. Live tumor cells appears in yellow and apoptotic tumor cells in green. Click here to see the movie.

NK cells establish dynamic interactions with tumor cells.
NK cells (yellow) infiltrating a solid tumor establish primarily short-lived interactions with Rae1-β expressing tumor cells (red). Click here to see the movie.