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Having a large number of sufficiently abundant T cell clones is important for adequate protection against diseases. However, as shown in this paper and elsewhere, between young adulthood and >70 y of age the effective clonal diversity of naive CD4/CD8 T cells found in human blood declines by a factor of >10. (Effective clonal diversity accounts for both the number and the abundance of T cell clones.) The causes of this observation are incompletely understood. A previous study proposed that it might result from the emergence of certain rare, replication-enhancing mutations in T cells. In this paper, we propose an even simpler explanation: that it results from the loss of T cells that have attained replicative senescence (i.e., the Hayflick limit). Stochastic numerical simulations of naive T cell population dynamics, based on experimental parameters, show that the rate of homeostatic T cell proliferation increases after the age of ~60 y because naive T cells collectively approach replicative senescence. This leads to a sharp decline of effective clonal diversity after ~70 y, in agreement with empirical data. A mathematical analysis predicts that, without an increase in the naive T cell proliferation rate, this decline will occur >50 yr later than empirically observed. These results are consistent with a model in which exhaustion of the proliferative capacity of naive T cells causes a sharp decline of their effective clonal diversity and imply that therapeutic potentiation of thymopoiesis might either prevent or reverse this outcome. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

GATA-3, a C2C2-type zinc finger transcription factor, regulates many steps of T cell development and differentiation. It is also required for optimal production of type 2 cytokines by CD8+ T cells. However, its role in the development and function of this subset of T cells is still poorly characterized. In this paper, we report that GATA-3 is required for MHC-mediated positive selection and final maturation of CD8 single-positive thymocytes. Deficiency of GATA-3 mediated by a CD4cre transgene led to age-dependent lymphadenopathy partly because of abnormal expansion of CD8+ T cells driven by a cell-extrinsic mechanism. Paradoxically, GATA-3-deficient CD8+ T cells were hyporesponsive to Ag stimulation due to a defect in the maintenance/ progression, but not initiation, of activation signals. More importantly, GATA-3-deficient CD8+ T cells were less efficient in killing Ag-bearing tumor cells in vivo. Taken together, our data further expand the role of GATA-3 in T cells. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]