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Updated: Jun 17, 2026

Isolation and Th17 Differentiation of Naïve CD4 T Lymphocytes
Published on: September 26, 2013
CTLA-4 suppresses the pathogenicity of self antigen-specific T cells by cell-intrinsic and cell-extrinsic mechanisms
Wataru Ise1, Masako Kohyama, Katherine M Nutsch
1Department of Pathology and Immunology, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, Missouri, USA.
Abstract:
The inhibitory immunoregulatory receptor CTLA-4 is critical in maintaining self-tolerance, but the mechanisms of its actions have remained controversial. Here we examined the antigen specificity of tissue-infiltrating CD4(+) T cells in Ctla4(-/-) mice. After adoptive transfer, T cells isolated from tissues of Ctla4(-/-) mice showed T cell antigen receptor (TCR)-dependent accumulation in the tissues from which they were derived, which suggested reactivity to tissue-specific antigens. We identified the pancreas-specific enzyme PDIA2 as an autoantigen in Ctla4(-/-) mice. CTLA-4 expressed either on PDIA2-specific effector cells or on regulatory T cells was sufficient to control tissue destruction mediated by PDIA2-specific T cells. Our results demonstrate that both cell-intrinsic and non-cell-autonomous actions of CTLA-4 operate to maintain T cell tolerance to a self antigen.
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