Inhibition of OXPHOS in rapamycin T cells by oligomycin reduces their survival capability of resisting IL-2 withdrawal.

<p>P14 CD44^loCD8⁺ T_N were stimulated <i>in vitro</i> with B6-derived DCs pulsed with gp33 plus IL-2, in the absence or presence of rapamycin (100 nM). (A) Six days later, cells were collected, and washed three times and seeded in secondary cultures in the absence IL-2, with or without addition of oligomycin. Cells were collected at the indicated time points, counted and calculated the live cell ratio as described in <a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0020107#pone-0020107-g001" target="_blank">Fig. 1</a>. (B) Control and rapamycin CD8⁺ cells recovered from cultured were re-seeded for the secondary culture in the presence of IL-2, or in the absence of IL-2 with or without addition of oligomycin for 24 hours. Quantitative real-time RT-PCR was performed to measure the expression of Bcl-2, Bcl-xL, Bim and Bax. Data are shown as means ± SD and representative of three independently performed experiments. *<i>p</i><0.05, significant difference.