Dysfunctional γδ T cells: a contributing factor for clinical tolerance to malaria?

γδ T cells are a small subset of T cells that can rapidly recognize and respond to antigen in a non-MHC restricted manner. The importance of γδ T cells during malaria infection is established by studies in both mouse models and with human cells, where γδ T cells expand during acute blood stage infections (1,2) and control parasitemia (3). We and others have demonstrated that human γδ T cells are one of the predominant cytokine producers following stimulation with Plasmodium-infected red blood cells in vitro (4-6) and following infection (7,8). γδ T cell cytokine responses are also associated with severe disease (9).