Abstract
It has been reported that the ratio of CD4+ to CD8+ T cells has no bias in a few class I major histocompatibility complex (MHC-I)-restricted T-cell receptor (TCR)-transgenic mice specific for alloantigens or autoantigens, in which most CD4+ T cells express an MHC-I-restricted TCR. In this study, we further showed that more than 50% of CD4+ T cells in MHC-I-restricted P1A tumor antigen-specific TCR (P1ATCR)-transgenic mice could specifically bind to MHC-I/P1A peptide complex. P1A peptide could stimulate the transgenic CD4+ T cells to proliferate and secrete both type 1 helper T cell and type 2 helper T cell cytokines. The activated CD4+ T cells also showed cytotoxicity against P1A-expressing tumor cells. The analysis of TCR α-chains showed that these CD4+ T cells were selected by co-expressing endogenous TCRs. Our results show that CD4+ T cells from P1ATCR transgenic mice co-expressed an MHC-I-restricted transgenic TCR and another rearranged endogenous TCRs, both of which were functional.
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This work was supported by grants from the National Natural Science Foundation of China under contract no. 30771968.
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Han, X., Ye, P., Luo, L. et al. The development and functions of CD4+ T cells expressing a transgenic TCR specific for an MHC-I-restricted tumor antigenic epitope. Cell Mol Immunol 8, 333–340 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1038/cmi.2011.14
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/cmi.2011.14
