IL-7 promotes long-term in vitro survival of unique long-lived memory subset generated from mucosal effector memory CD4+ T cells in chronic colitis mice

Highlights • Colitic effector memory CD4+ T cells are not short-lived, but include long-lived cells. • We developed novel long-term culture system for effector memory CD4+ T cells in colitis mice. • Cultured-memory CD4+ T cells highly expressed Bcl-2, integrin-α4β7, CXCR3 and CD25. • Cultured-memory CD4+ T cells produced considerable IL-2 in response to gut microbes. • Memory CD4+ T cells cultured for 8 weeks induced more severe colitis than those cultured for 4 weeks.