How the T cell repertoire becomes peptide and MHC specific Article

Huseby, ES, White, J, Crawford, F et al. (2005). How the T cell repertoire becomes peptide and MHC specific . 122(2), 247-260. 10.1016/j.cell.2005.05.013

cited authors

  • Huseby, ES; White, J; Crawford, F; Vass, T; Becker, D; Pinilla, C; Marrack, P; Kappler, JW

authors

abstract

  • T cells bearing αβ T cell receptors (TCRs) recognize antigens in the form of peptides bound to class I or class II major histocompatibility proteins (MHC). TCRs on mature T cells are usually very specific for both peptide and MHC class and allele. They are picked out from a precursor population in the thymus by MHC-driven positive and negative selection. Here we show that the pool of T cells initially positively selected in the thymus contains many T cells that are very crossreactive for peptide and MHC and that subsequent negative selection establishes the MHC-restriction and peptide specificity of peripheral T cells. Our results also suggest that germline-encoded TCR variable elements have an inherent predisposition to react with features shared by all MHC proteins. Copyright ©2005 by Elsevier Inc.

publication date

  • July 29, 2005

Digital Object Identifier (DOI)

start page

  • 247

end page

  • 260

volume

  • 122

issue

  • 2