Nature Immunology
1, 336 - 341 (2000)
doi:10.1038/79790
Receptor editing in developing T cellsMaureen A. McGargill, Jens M. Derbinski
& Kristin A. Hogquist
Department of Laboratory Medicine and Pathology, and
the Center for Immunology University of Minnesota, Minneapolis
, MN 55455, USA.
Correspondence should be addressed to Kristin A. Hogquist hogqu001@gold.tc.umn.eduA central tenet of T cell development postulates that if a developing thymocyte
encounters self-antigen, it is induced to die via apoptosis, thereby protecting
the organism from autoreactive T cells. We created transgenic mice that expressed
a peptide antigen in the cortical epithelial cells of the thymus. This did
not, however, result in deletion of specific T cells. Instead, antigen presentation
by epithelial cells caused T cell receptor (TCR) internalization and increased
gene rearrangement at the endogenous TCR locus, or receptor editing.
This editing mechanism in immature T cells parallels that which occurs in
immature B cells, and has important implications for understanding positive
and negative selection signaling in the thymus, and the limits of self-tolerance.
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