Self-tolerance in B lymphocytes

C C Goodnow1, A Basten

  • 1Centenary Institute of Cancer Medicine and Cell Biology, University of Sydney, NSW, Australia 2006.

Seminars in Immunology
|November 1, 1989
PubMed

Normally the immune system does not produce pathogenic antibodies to autologous antigens, due to induction of self-tolerance in both the T and B lymphocyte repertoires. The aim of this paper is to review the evidence for self-tolerance within the B cell repertoire, and the range of possible mechanisms responsible for it. In practice, the mechanism of B cell tolerance to autologous antigens in vivo remains controversial, and may in fact vary (depending on the nature of the self antigen and the properties of the self-reactive B cell. Recent work in transgenic mouse models of B cell tolerance has helped to assimilate the numerous and sometimes disparate findings from other models, firstly by allowing direct visualization of the fate of self-reactive B cells in vivo, and secondly, by enabling systematic genetic changes to be made either in the self antigen or in the self-reactive B cell.

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