Organ specific autoantigens and the autoreactiveT cell repertoire: the case of myelin oligodendrocyte glycoprotein

European Journal of Immunology
H Wekerle, Christopher Linington

Abstract

There is strong evidence that immunological self tolerance critically relies on the elimination of potentially autoaggressive T lymphocyte clones from the emerging immune repertoire during intrathymic T cell differentiation. These 'forbidden' T cells are deleted as a result of a confrontation with their specific self antigen as presented on medullary stroma cells. But this purging mechanism is remarkably leaky, allowing numerous autoreactive T cells to join the healthy immune repertoire. A paper in this issue of the European Journal of Immunology studies the effect of organ-specific autoantigen expression on the cognate T cell repertoire. Myelin oligodendrocyte glycoprotein (MOG), a putative autoantigen in human multiple sclerosis, is used as a model self antigen. T cell receptor profiles in wild-type mice were compared with those in MOG-knock-out mice. Surprisingly, significant differences were not found suggesting that, in this particular case, autoantigen expression does not affect the autoreactive T cell repertoire.

References

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Citations

Sep 7, 2006·The Journal of Clinical Investigation·Richard M Ransohoff
Apr 25, 2007·The Prostate·Elena N KlyushnenkovaRichard B Alexander

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