Antigen-directed retention of an autoimmune T-cell line.

We have used the T-cell-mediated, organ-specific autoimmune disease model of experimental autoimmune uveoretinitis (EAU) in the Lewis rat to study antigen-directed retention of autoimmune T helper cells in the target organ. We have compared the migration into the eye of two T-helper-cell lines: ThS, specific for retinal S antigen (S-Ag), that is uveitogenic to normal syngenic recipients, and ThP, specific to purified protein derivative of tuberculin (PPD), that is non-uveitogenic. The retention of adoptively transferred 51Cr-labeled ThS and ThP was studied up to the stage of disease induction in unprimed animals, during the acute stage of EAU induced by active immunization with S-Ag, and during the acute stage of a uveitis induced by a nonocular antigen (bovine serum albumin, BSA). Low numbers of cells from the two lymphocyte lines were detected in the eyes of unprimed animals, with no obvious increase of ThS over ThP, despite induction of EAU in the recipient animals by the injected ThS cells. In S-Ag-induced EAU many more ThS accumulated in the eye than ThP. In BSA uveitis both T-cell lines accumulated in the eye to the same extent, but more than in control noninflamed eyes. These results demonstrate the presence of increased antigen-specific retention of circulating autoimmune T helper lymphocytes during the acute stage of an ocular antigen-specific, but not ocular antigen nonspecific, inflammation. Since detectable accumulation of ThS cells in the eye was not a prerequisite for the induction of EAU, this phenomenon appears to be the result, rather than the cause, of the autoimmune process.