Immune regulation by self-reactive T cells is antigen specific

C Tanchot, F Vasseur, C Pontoux, C Garcia… - The Journal of …, 2004 - journals.aai.org
C Tanchot, F Vasseur, C Pontoux, C Garcia, A Sarukhan
The Journal of Immunology, 2004journals.aai.org
Immune regulation plays an important role in the establishment and maintenance of self-
tolerance. Nevertheless, it has been difficult to conclude whether regulation is Ag specific
because studies have focused on polyclonal populations of regulatory T cells. We have
used in this study a murine transgenic model that generates self-reactive, regulatory T cells
of known Ag specificity to determine their capacity to suppress naive T cells specific for other
Ags. We show that these regulatory cells can regulate the responses of naive T cells with the …
Abstract
Immune regulation plays an important role in the establishment and maintenance of self-tolerance. Nevertheless, it has been difficult to conclude whether regulation is Ag specific because studies have focused on polyclonal populations of regulatory T cells. We have used in this study a murine transgenic model that generates self-reactive, regulatory T cells of known Ag specificity to determine their capacity to suppress naive T cells specific for other Ags. We show that these regulatory cells can regulate the responses of naive T cells with the same TCR specificity, but do not inhibit T cell proliferation or differentiation of naive T cells specific for other Ags. These results demonstrate that immune regulation may be more Ag specific than previously proposed.
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