Matzinger P, Waterfield J D
Nature. 1980 Jun 12;285(5765):492-4. doi: 10.1038/285492a0.
An individual's immune system must be capable of responding to a wide variety of antigens, but must not react against tissues of the individual itself. The specificity of this 'self tolerance' is determined early in life and recent work has dealt with the mechanisms by which self tolerance is maintained. We report here a study designed to determine whether products of the major histocompatibility complex are involved in the induction of self tolerance; in particular, whether the induction of self tolerance in the mouse is H-2 restricted. H-2 restriction refers to the finding that mouse T cells generally recognize foreign antigens only when presented in association with the products of H-2 alleles. We questioned whether T-cell precursors are made tolerant directly by antigen alone, or whether the antigen must be associated in the cell membrane with an appropriate H-2 molecule. We find that T-cell tolerance to 'self' membrane components does not seem to be H-2 restricted and discuss the possibility that this apparent lack of H-2 restriction is due to antigen processing.
个体的免疫系统必须能够对多种抗原作出反应，但不能对个体自身的组织产生反应。这种“自身耐受性”的特异性在生命早期就已确定，近期的研究探讨了维持自身耐受性的机制。我们在此报告一项研究，旨在确定主要组织相容性复合体的产物是否参与自身耐受性的诱导；特别是，小鼠自身耐受性的诱导是否受H-2限制。H-2限制是指这样一个发现：小鼠T细胞通常仅在与H-2等位基因的产物结合时才识别外来抗原。我们质疑T细胞前体是直接由抗原本身诱导产生耐受性，还是抗原必须在细胞膜上与适当的H-2分子结合。我们发现，T细胞对“自身”膜成分的耐受性似乎不受H-2限制，并讨论了这种明显缺乏H-2限制可能是由于抗原加工的可能性。
