Pani G, Piastra M, Ria F
Institute of General Pathology, Catholic University, Largo F. Vito, Rome, Italy.
Immunol Invest. 1994 Aug;23(4-5):337-46. doi: 10.3109/08820139409066828.
It has been observed that a hierarchy exists among epitopes such that fewer epitopes are actually involved in the induction of T cell response and tolerance than there are epitopes available in a given antigen. Some epitopes which are "cryptic" for immune activity within the protein, are nevertheless able to elicit a response if administered alone and can also be used to by-pass tolerance. We report that tolerance to a self protein shows the same phenomenon seen for non self proteins. In fact, we elicit a proliferative response toward a predicted minor cryptic epitope, to which animals are clearly not self-tolerant. The minor epitope escapes the induction of tolerance to self proteins more easily than the major epitopes, since we cannot elicit proliferative response to the major epitope. A striking feature of our results however is that lack of self tolerance to the minor epitope appears as not being due to the failure of presentation of this epitope in normal, healthy animals.
已经观察到表位之间存在层次结构，以至于与给定抗原中可用的表位相比，实际参与T细胞反应和耐受诱导的表位更少。一些在蛋白质内对免疫活性“隐蔽”的表位，然而如果单独给药能够引发反应，并且也可用于绕过耐受。我们报道对自身蛋白质的耐受表现出与非自身蛋白质相同的现象。事实上，我们引发了针对预测的微小隐蔽表位的增殖反应，动物显然对该表位没有自身耐受。微小表位比主要表位更容易逃避对自身蛋白质耐受的诱导，因为我们不能引发对主要表位的增殖反应。然而我们结果的一个显著特征是，对微小表位缺乏自身耐受似乎并不是由于在正常健康动物中该表位呈递失败所致。
