The Journal of Experimental Medicine
Avanti Polar Lipids, Inc.
  Home | Help | Feedback | Subscriptions | Archive | Search | Table of Contents
This Article
Right arrow Full Text
Right arrow Full Text (PDF, 354K)
Right arrow PPT slides of all figures
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Citation Map
Services
Right arrow Email this article
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Similar articles in PubMed
Right arrow Alert me to new content in the JEM
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Citing Articles
Right arrow Citing Articles via HighWire
Right arrow Citing Articles via CrossRef
Right arrow Citing Articles via Google Scholar
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Pearson, C.I.
Right arrow Articles by McDevitt, H.O.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
PubMed
Right arrow PubMed Citation
Right arrow Articles by Pearson, C.I.
Right arrow Articles by McDevitt, H.O.
Right arrowPubmed/NCBI databases
*Substance via MeSH
Social Bookmarking
Add to CiteULike   Add to Complore   Add to Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us   Add to Digg   Add to Reddit   Add to Technorati  
What's this?

J. Exp. Med.
© The Rockefeller University Press
0022-1007/97/02/583/18 $2.00
Volume 185, Number 4, February 17, 1997 583-600

Induction of Apoptosis and T Helper 2 (Th2) Responses Correlates with Peptide Affinity for the Major Histocompatibility Complex in Self-reactive T Cell Receptor Transgenic Mice

By C.I. Pearson,* W. van Ewijk,Dagger and H.O. McDevitt*

From the * Department of Microbiology and Immunology, Stanford University Medical Center, Stanford, California 94305; and Dagger  Department of Immunology, Erasmus Universiteit Rotterdam, Postbus 1738, 3000 DR Rotterdam, The Netherlands

Multiple sclerosis is an autoimmune disease thought to be mediated by CD4+ T helper cells (Th). Experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis is a rodent model of multiple sclerosis and has been used extensively to explore a variety of immunotherapies using soluble protein or peptide antigens. The underlying mechanisms of such therapy have been attributed to induction of T cell anergy, a switch in Th1 to Th2 responses, or peripheral deletion of autoreactive T cells. In this study, we have developed transgenic mice expressing a T cell receptor (TCR) specific for the NH2-terminal peptide Ac1-11 of the autoantigen myelin basic protein to explore the mechanism of soluble peptide therapy. T cells from these mice are highly skewed toward the CD4 population and have an abnormal thymic architecture, a phenomenon found in other TCR transgenic mice that exhibit a highly skewed CD4/CD8 ratio. Soluble Ac1-11 or the analogues Ac1-11[4A] or Ac1-11[4Y] (which bind to the major histocompatibility complex [MHC] class II molecule I-Au with increasing affinities) given intravenously activates T cells, rendering cells hyperresponsive in vitro for at least two days after injection. Concomitantly, T cells apoptose in the periphery, the degree of which correlates with the affinity of the peptide for the MHC. In addition, a shift in the T helper phenotype of the surviving T cells occurs such that the low affinity peptide, Ac1-11, induces primarily a Th1 response, whereas the highest affinity peptide, Ac1-11[4Y], induces primarily a Th2 type response. These data show that both the nature and the presumed number of the peptide-MHC complexes formed during specific peptide therapy affect both the degree of peripheral programmed cell death as well as the outcome of the T helper subset response in vivo, leading to amelioration of disease.


Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Complore Complore   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us   Add to Digg Digg   Add to Reddit Reddit   Add to Technorati Technorati    What's this?


This article has been cited by other articles:



  Home | Help | Feedback | Subscriptions | Archive | Search
TABLE OF CONTENTS