Acute exercise impacts AhR and PD-1 levels of CD8+ T-cells—Exploratory results from a randomized cross-over trial comparing endurance versus resistance exercise

Abstract

Purpose: The programmed cell death protein 1 (PD-1) has become a promising target in cancer immunotherapy. PD-1 expression of CD8+ T-cells may be increased via the exploitation of aryl hydrocarbon receptor (AhR) signaling with kynurenine (KYN) as a ligand. Since exercise affects KYN metabolism, we exploratory investigated the influence of acute exercise bouts on AhR and PD-1 levels of CD8+ T-cells. Method: In this study, 24 healthy males (age: 24.6 ± 3.9 years; weight 83.9 ± 10.5 kg; height: 182.4 ± 6.2 cm) completed a single bout of endurance (EE) and resistance exercise (RE) in a randomly assigned order on separate days. Blood samples were drawn before (t0), after (t1), and 1 h after (t2) both conditions. T-cell populations, the level of cytoplasmic AhR, and surface PD-1 were assessed by flow cytometry. Results: T-cell populations changed over time, indicated by an increase in the absolute numbers of CD3+ lymphocytes after EE (p