B cell clonal elimination induced by membrane-bound self-antigen may require repeated antigen encounter or cell competition
✍ Scribed by Julie Lang; David Nemazee
- Book ID
- 101381364
- Publisher
- John Wiley and Sons
- Year
- 2000
- Tongue
- English
- Weight
- 172 KB
- Volume
- 30
- Category
- Article
- ISSN
- 0014-2980
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✦ Synopsis
Transgenic mouse experiments indicate that autoreactive B cells are eliminated upon encounter with membrane self-antigen. In this study we tested how B cell tolerance to MHC class I antigens is affected by altering the frequency of antigen-carrying cells in mixed bone marrow (BM) chimeras. When antigen-bearing cells are present at low frequency, the reactive B cells and their antigens may coexist in the peripheral lymphoid organs, but under these conditions the B cells are functionally anergic and have a shortened lifespan. Such putative anergic cells are strongly deleted in the presence of additional, non-antigenbearing, non-transgenic B cells. Since the antigen concentration on the surface of each antigen-bearing cell should be high, these results suggest that for efficient deletion of autoreactive B cells multiple antigen encounters may be required, particularly when cellular competition is weak. These results have implications for the therapeutic use of BM chimerism to induce B cell tolerance to grafts.