T cell tolerance based on avidity thresholds rather than complete deletion allows maintenance of maximal repertoire diversity

Control of advanced choroid plexus tumors in SV40 T antigen transgenic mice following priming of donor CD8(+) T lymphocytes by the endogenous tumor antigen

Mouse models in which tumors arise spontaneously due to the transgenic expression of an oncoprotein provide an opportunity to test approaches that target the immune-mediated control of tumor progression. In this report we investigated the role of SV40 Tag-specific CD8(+) T cells in the control of advanced choroid plexus tumor progression using large tumor Ag (Tag) transgenic mice. Since mice of the SV11 line are tolerant to the immunodominant SV40 Tag-derived CTL epitopes, mice with advanced stage tumors were reconstituted with naive C57BL/6 spleen cells following a low dose of gamma-irradiation. This led to the priming of CTLs specific for the H2-K(b)-restricted epitope IV by the endogenous Tag and a significant increase in the life span of Tag transgenic mice. Epitope IV-specific CD8(+) T cells accumulated and persisted in the brains and tumors of SV11 mice, as determined by analysis with epitope-specific MHC class I tetramers. Brain-infiltrating epitope IV-specific T cells were capable of producing IFN-gamma as well as lysing syngeneic Tag-transformed cells in vitro. In addition, the adoptive transfer of spleen cells from Tag-immune C57BL/6 mice resulted in a dramatic increase in the control of tumor progression in SV11 mice and was associated with the accumulation of CD8(+) T cells specific for multiple Tag epitopes in the brain. These results indicate that the control of advanced stage spontaneous choroid plexus tumors is associated with the induction of a strong and persistent CD8(+) T cell response to Tag.

Tolerance to nickel: oral nickel administration induces a high frequency of anergic T cells with persistent suppressor activity

We adapted our mouse model of allergic contact hypersensitivity to nickel for the study of tolerance. Sensitization in this model is achieved by the administration of nickel ions with H(2)O(2); nickel ions alone are unable to prime naive T cells, but can restimulate primed ones. A 4-wk course of oral or i.p. administration of 10 mM NiCl(2) to naive mice induced tolerance, preventing the induction of hypersensitivity for at least 20 wk; long term desensitization of nickel-sensitized mice, however, required continuous NiCl(2) administration. When splenic T cells of orally tolerized donors, even after a treatment-free interval of 20 wk, were transferred to naive recipients, as with lymph node cells (LNC), they specifically prevented sensitization of the recipients. The LNC of such donors were anergic, because upon in vivo sensitization with NiCl(2) in H(2)O(2) and in vitro restimulation with NiCl(2), they failed to show the enhanced proliferation and IL-2 production as seen with LNC of mice not tolerized before sensitization. As few as 10(2) bulk T cells, consisting of both CD4(+) and CD8(+) cells, were able to specifically transfer tolerance to nickel. A hypothesis is provided to account for this extraordinarily high frequency of nickel-reactive, suppressive T cells; it takes into account that nickel ions fail to act as classical haptens, but form versatile, unstable metal-protein and metal-peptide complexes. Furthermore, a powerful amplification mechanism, such as infectious tolerance, must operate which allows but a few donor T cells to tolerize the recipient.

The T-cell repertoire available for recognition of self-antigens

Autoimmunity can be viewed as the price we pay in order to have a highly diverse TCR repertoire. This is not to say that every effort isn't made by the immune system to prevent autoimmune disease. During thymic development, and later in the periphery, the TCR repertoire is continuously purged of cells that are activated by self-antigens. Other lymphocytes are recruited to join a legion of T regulatory cells that assist in preventing 'friendly fire'. Recent studies continue to reveal the importance of the composition of the T cell repertoire in predisposing an individual to autoimmune disease.

Strategies for designing and optimizing new generation vaccines

Although the field of immunology developed in part from the early vaccine studies of Edward Jenner, Louis Pasteur and others, vaccine development had largely become the province of virologists and other microbiologists, because the model for classic vaccines was to isolate the pathogen and prepare a killed or attenuated pathogen vaccine. Only recently has vaccinology returned to the realm of immunology, because a new understanding of immune mechanisms has allowed translation of basic discoveries into vaccine strategies.

Low-avidity self-specific T cells display a pronounced expansion defect that can be overcome by altered peptide ligands

Thymic expression of self-Ags results in the deletion of high-avidity self-specific T cells, but, at least for certain Ags, a residual population of self-specific T cells with low-affinity TCRs remains after negative selection. Such self-specific T cells are thought to play a role in the induction of T cell-mediated autoimmunity, but may also be used for the induction of antitumor immunity against self-Ags. In this study, we examine the functional competence of a polyclonal population of self-specific CD8+ T cells. We show that low-affinity interactions between TCR and peptide are associated with selective loss of critical T cell functions. Triggering of low levels of IFN-gamma production and cytolytic activity through low-affinity TCRs readily occurs provided high Ag doses are used, but IL-2 production and clonal expansion are severely reduced at all Ag doses. Remarkably, a single peptide variant can form an improved ligand for the highly diverse population of low-avidity self-specific T cells and can improve their proliferative capacity. These data provide insight into the inherent limitations of self-specific T cell responses through low-avidity TCR signals and the effect of modified peptide ligands on self-specific T cell immunity.

Peptide requirement for CTL activation reflects the sensitivity to CD3 engagement: correlation with CD8alphabeta versus CD8alphaalpha expression

In our previous studies, CTL that were sensitive to low concentrations of peptide Ag were found to be far superior to those requiring high concentrations of Ag for reducing viral burden when adoptively transferred into SCID mice. Thus it is important that we understand the mechanisms that control the requirement for peptide Ag with the long-term goal of selectively expanding these exquisitely sensitive cells in vivo. Although TCR affinity is one parameter that can affect the CTL sensitivity for Ag, we investigated whether additional mechanisms may also be involved. In studies using a TCR transgenic mouse model, we successfully generated CTL with identical TCR affinity that possess distinctly different activation requirements. Using both peptide Ag and anti-CD3 Ab to activate the CTL lines of high vs low avidity, we found that the variations in activation threshold are the result of differences in the required number of engaged TCR. Additionally, we have observed that the ratio of CD8alphabeta to CD8alphaalpha is significantly greater in CTL lines that are more sensitive to TCR engagement, which may contribute to the lower activation threshold of these CTL following CD3 engagement. These studies identify a novel mechanism by which the activation requirements of Ag-specific CTL are determined by demonstrating a direct correlation between the sensitivity to TCR engagement, the expression of levels CD8alphabeta vs alphaalpha, and the amount of peptide Ag required to reach the threshold for activation.

Induction of stable prenatal tolerance to beta-galactosidase by in utero gene transfer into preimmune sheep fetuses

The successful transduction of hematopoietic stem cells and long-term (28 months) transgene expression within the hematopoietic system following the direct injection of high-titer retroviral vectors into preimmune fetal sheep was previously demonstrated. The present studies extended these analyses for 40 months postinjection and evaluated whether the longevity of transgene expression in this model system was the result of induction of prenatal tolerance to the transgene product. The intraperitoneal injection of retroviral vectors into preimmune sheep fetuses transduces thymic epithelial cells thought to present antigen and thus define self during immune system development. To directly demonstrate induction of tolerance, postnatal sheep were boosted with purified beta-galactosidase and showed that the peripheral blood lymphocytes from in utero-transduced sheep exhibited significantly lower stimulation indices to transduced autologous cells than did control animals and that the in utero-transduced sheep had a reduced ability to mount an antibody response to the vector-encoded beta-galactosidase protein compared with control sheep. Collectively, our results provide evidence that the direct injection of retroviral vectors into preimmune sheep fetuses induces cellular and humoral tolerance to the vector/transgene products and provide an explanation for the duration and stability of transgene expression seen in this model. These results also suggest that even relatively low levels of gene transfer in utero may render the recipient tolerant to the exogenous gene and thus potentially permit the successful postnatal treatment of the recipient. (Blood. 2001;97:3417-3423)

Adaptive value of polymorphism in intracellular self/not-self discrimination?

A microbial pathogen species can adapt to its host species to the extent that members of the host species are uniform. Loss of this uniformity would make it difficult for a pathogen species to transfer, from one member of the host species to another, what it had "learned" through selection of its members with advantageous mutations. The existence of major histocompatibility complex (MHC) polymorphism indicates that non-uniformity within a species is an effective host defence strategy. By virtue of this molecular discontinuity among its members the host species can "present a moving target" to the pathogen. Many proteins other than MHC proteins show polymorphism - a phenomenon which has suggested that mutations in regions of protein molecules which do not affect overt function are neutral. However, in the context of the author's differential aggregation theory of intracellular self/not-self discrimination as previously applied to the problem of the antigenicity of cancer cells, such polymorphism should serve for the recruitment of subsets of self-antigens into the antigenic repertoire of an infected cell. These would act as "intracellular antibodies" by virtue of their weak, but specific, aggregation with pathogen proteins. Peptides from the self-antigens, as well as (or instead of) those from the antigens of the pathogen, would then serve as targets for attack by cytotoxic T cells. Thus, polymorphism of intracellular proteins should be of adaptive value, serving to amplify and individualize the immune response to intracellular pathogens.

Impact of negative selection on the T cell repertoire reactive to a self-peptide: a large fraction of T cell clones escapes clonal deletion

How negative selection shapes a polyclonal population of self-reactive T cells has been difficult to address directly because of the lack of means to isolate T cells reactive to a particular self-peptide. Here, using mice transgenic for the TCR-beta chain of a CTL clone directed against a male-specific peptide, we compared the preimmune repertoire reactive to this peptide in male and female animals. Surprisingly, in the presence of the deleting ligand, as many as 25%-40% of reactive T cells escaped clonal deletion. A correlation was found between T cell avidity, TCRalpha structures, and susceptibility to negative selection. These results suggest that numerous low-affinity self-specific T cells persist in the periphery and show that a deleting ligand can specifically narrow the structural diversity of the TCR repertoire.