Germinal center alloantibody responses are mediated exclusively by indirect-pathway CD4 T follicular helper cells

TM Conlon, K Saeb-Parsy, JL Cole… - The Journal of …, 2012 - journals.aai.org
TM Conlon, K Saeb-Parsy, JL Cole, R Motallebzadeh, MS Qureshi, S Rehakova, MC Negus…
The Journal of Immunology, 2012journals.aai.org
The durable alloantibody responses that develop in organ transplant patients indicate long-
lived plasma cell output from T-dependent germinal centers (GCs), but which of the two
pathways of CD4 T cell allorecognition is responsible for generating allospecific T follicular
helper cells remains unclear. This was addressed by reconstituting T cell-deficient mice with
monoclonal populations of TCR-transgenic CD4 T cells that recognized alloantigen only as
conformationally intact protein (direct pathway) or only as self-restricted allopeptide (indirect …
Abstract
The durable alloantibody responses that develop in organ transplant patients indicate long-lived plasma cell output from T-dependent germinal centers (GCs), but which of the two pathways of CD4 T cell allorecognition is responsible for generating allospecific T follicular helper cells remains unclear. This was addressed by reconstituting T cell-deficient mice with monoclonal populations of TCR-transgenic CD4 T cells that recognized alloantigen only as conformationally intact protein (direct pathway) or only as self-restricted allopeptide (indirect pathway) and then assessing the alloantibody response to a heart graft. Recipients reconstituted with indirect-pathway CD4 T cells developed long-lasting IgG alloantibody responses, with splenic GCs and allospecific bone marrow plasma cells readily detectable 50 d after heart transplantation. Differentiation of the transferred CD4 T cells into T follicular helper cells was confirmed by follicular localization and by acquisition of signature phenotype. In contrast, IgG alloantibody was not detectable in recipient mice reconstituted with direct-pathway CD4 T cells. Neither prolongation of the response by preventing NK cell killing of donor dendritic cells nor prior immunization to develop CD4 T cell memory altered the inability of the direct pathway to provide allospecific B cell help. CD4 T cell help for GC alloantibody responses is provided exclusively via the indirect-allorecognition pathway.
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