Abstract
The mechanisms of allograft tolerance have been classified as deletion, anergy, ignorance and suppression/regulation. Deletion has been implicated in central tolerance1, whereas peripheral tolerance has generally been ascribed to clonal anergy and/or active immunoregulatory states2. Here, we used two distinct systems to assess the requirement for T-cell deletion in peripheral tolerance induction. In mice transgenic for Bcl-xL, T cells were resistant to passive cell death through cytokine withdrawal, whereas T cells from interleukin-2-deficient mice did not undergo activation-induced cell death. Using either agents that block co-stimulatory pathways or the immunosuppressive drug rapamycin, which we have shown here blocks the proliferative component of interleukin-2 signaling but does not inhibit priming for activation-induced cell death, we found that mice with defective passive or active T-cell apoptotic pathways were resistant to induction of transplantation tolerance. Thus, deletion of activated T cells through activation-induced cell death or growth factor withdrawal seems necessary to achieve peripheral tolerance across major histocompatibility complex barriers.
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Acknowledgements
This work was supported by the National Kidney Foundation of America (X.C.L.), the Juvenile Diabetes Foundation (X.X.Z., T.B.S., M.H.S. and L.A.T.), the American Heart Association (L.A.T.) and the National Institutes of Health (AI-34665, AI-37691, AI-37798, AI-41521, AI-42298 and CA09140).
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Wells, A., Li, X., Li, Y. et al. Requirement for T-cell apoptosis in the induction of peripheral transplantation tolerance. Nat Med 5, 1303–1307 (1999). https://doi.org/10.1038/15260
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/15260
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