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Expansion of the antigenic repertoire of a single T cell receptor upon T cell activation

A Amrani1, P Serra, J Yamanouchi

  • 1Department of Microbiology and Infectious Diseases, Faculty of Medicine, University of Calgary, 3330 Hospital Drive NW, Calgary, Alberta, Canada T2N 4N1.

Journal of Immunology (Baltimore, Md. : 1950)
|July 7, 2001
PubMed

Activated T cells and their naive precursors display different functional avidities for peptide/MHC, but are thought to have identical antigenic repertoires. We show that, following activation with a cognate mimotope (NRP), diabetogenic CD8(+) T cells expressing a single TCR (8.3) respond vigorously to numerous peptide analogs of NRP that were unable to elicit any responses from naive 8.3-CD8(+) T cells, even at high concentrations. The NRP-reactive, in vivo activated CD8(+) cells arising in pancreatic islets of nonobese diabetic mice are similarly promiscuous for peptide/MHC, and paradoxically this promiscuity expands as the aviditiy of the T cell population for NRP/MHC increases with age. Thus, activation and avidity maturation of T lymphocyte populations can lead to dramatic expansions in the range of peptides that elicit functional T cell responses.

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