Abstract
A small population of CD4+ OVA-specific TCR transgenic T cells was tracked following the induction of peripheral tolerance by soluble Ag to address whether functionally unresponsive, or anergic T cells, persist in vivo for extended periods of time. Although injection of OVA peptide in the absence of adjuvant caused a transient expansion and deletion of the Ag- specific T cells, a population that showed signs of prior activation persisted in the lymphoid tissues for several months. These surviving OVA- specific T cells had long-lasting, but reversible defects in their ability to proliferate in lymph nodes and secrete IL-2 and TNF-α in vivo following an antigenic challenge. These defects were not associated with the production of Th2-type cytokines or the capacity to suppress the clonal expansion of a bystander population of T cells present in the same lymph nodes. Therefore, our results provide direct evidence that a long-lived population of functionally impaired Ag-specific CD4+ T cells is generated in vivo after exposure to soluble Ag.
Original language | English (US) |
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Pages (from-to) | 4719-4729 |
Number of pages | 11 |
Journal | Journal of Immunology |
Volume | 160 |
Issue number | 10 |
State | Published - May 15 1998 |