CD8 T cell tolerance results from eviction of immature autoreactive cells from the thymus

Mohamed Elsherif Badr1, Zhongmei Zhang1, Xuguang Tai1

  • 1Experimental Immunology Branch, National Cancer Institute, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD 20892, USA.

Science (New York, N.Y.)
|November 2, 2023
PubMed

CD8 T cell tolerance is thought to result from clonal deletion of autoreactive thymocytes before they differentiate into mature CD8 T cells in the thymus. However, we report that, in mice, CD8 T cell tolerance instead results from premature thymic eviction of immature autoreactive CD8 thymocytes into the periphery, where they differentiate into self-tolerant mature CD8 T cells. Premature thymic eviction is triggered by T cell receptor (TCR)-driven down-regulation of the transcriptional repressor Gfi1, which induces expression of sphingosine-1-phosphate receptor-1 (S1P1) on negatively selected immature CD8 thymocytes. Thus, premature thymic eviction is the basis for CD8 T cell tolerance and is the mechanism responsible for the appearance in the periphery of mature CD8 T cells bearing autoreactive TCRs that are absent from the thymus.

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