A minimum number of autoimmune T cells to induce autoimmunity?
While autoimmune T cells are present in most individuals, only a minority of the population suffers from an autoimmune disease. To better appreciate the limits of T cell tolerance, we carried out experiments to determine how many autoimmune T cells are required to initiate an experimental autoimmune disease. Variable numbers of autoimmune OT-I T cells were transferred into RIP-OVA mice, which were injected with antigen-loaded DCs in a single footpad; this restricted T cell priming to a few OT-I T cells that are present in the draining popliteal lymph node. Using selective plane illumination microscopy (SPIM) we counted the number of OT-I T cells present in the popliteal lymph node at the time of priming. Analysis of our data suggests that a single autoimmune T cell cannot induce an experimental autoimmune disease, but a "quorum" of 2-5 autoimmune T cells clearly has this capacity.
['Bosch|Angela J T|AJT|', 'Bolinger|Beatrice|B|', 'Keck|Simone|S|', 'Stepanek|Ondrej|O|', 'Ozga|Aleksandra J|AJ|', 'Galati-Fournier|Virginie|V|', 'Stein|Jens V|JV|', 'Palmer|Ed|E|']
D019264:Adoptive Transfer D000818:Animals D017951:Antigen Presentation D001327:Autoimmune Diseases D015551:Autoimmunity D018414:CD8-Positive T-Lymphocytes D003713:Dendritic Cells D003921:Diabetes Mellitus, Experimental D004195:Disease Models, Animal D007108:Immune Tolerance D008198:Lymph Nodes D051379:Mice D008822:Mice, Transgenic D010047:Ovalbumin
Autoimmunity T cell Tolerance