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Regulatory CD4+ T cells, enriched in the CD25 pool of healthy individuals, mediate natural tolerance and prevent autoimmune diseases. Despite their fundamental and potential clinical significance, regulatory T (TR) cells have not yet been incorporated in a coherent theory of the immune system. This article reviews experimental evidence and theoretical arguments supporting a model of TR cell dynamics, uncovering some of its most relevant biological implications. According to this model, the persistence and expansion of TR cell populations depend strictly on specific interactions they make with antigen-presenting cells (APCs) and conventional effector T (TE) cells. This three-partner crossregulation imposes that TR cells feed on the specific autoimmune activities they suppress, with implications ranging from their interactions with other cells to their repertoire selection in the periphery and in the thymus, and to the relationship between these cells and the innate immune system. These implications stem from the basic prediction that the peripheral dynamics sort the CD4+ T-cell repertoire into two subsets: a less diverse set of small clones of autoreactive effector and regulatory cells that regulate each other’s growth, and a more diverse set of barely autoreactive TE cell clones, whose expansion is limited only by APC availability. It is argued that such partitioning of the repertoire sets the ground for self–non-self discrimination. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Elucidating the network of interactions established by Interleukin-2 is a key step to understanding its role as a master regulator of the immune system. Binding of this cytokine by specific antibodies gives rise to different classes of immune complexes that boost or inhibit immune responses. The molecular bases of such functional dichotomy are likely related to the nature of the recognized epitopes, making it necessary to perform fine epitope mapping studies. The current work was aimed at developing a versatile platform to do so. This was accomplished by display of human and mouse Interleukin-2 on filamentous phages, together with extensive mutagenesis of both antigens and high throughput screening of binding properties of more than 200 variants. Detailed molecular pictures of the epitopes were thus delineated for four antibodies against either human or mouse Interleukin-2, which refined and, in some cases, modified the conclusions derived from previous mapping studies with peptide libraries. Overlapping surface patches on mouse Interleukin-2 that also coincide with the predicted interface between the cytokine and its receptor alpha chain were shown to be recognized by two monoclonal antibodies that promote enhancement of immune responses, shedding new light on the structural bases of their biological activity. Our strategy was powerful enough to reveal multiple binding details and could be used to map the epitopes recognized by other antibodies and to explore additional interactions involving Interleukin-2 and related cytokines, thus contributing to our understanding of the complex structure–function relationships within the immune system. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: One of the fundamental properties of the immune system is its capacity to avoid autoimmune diseases. The mechanism underlying this process, known as self-tolerance, is hitherto unresolved but seems to involve the control of clonal expansion of autoreactive lymphocytes. This article reviews mathematical modeling of self-tolerance, addressing two specific hypotheses. The first hypothesis posits that self-tolerance is mediated by tuning of activation thresholds, which makes autoreactive T lymphocytes reversibly “anergic” and unable to proliferate. The second hypothesis posits that the proliferation of autoreactive T lymphocytes is instead controlled by specific regulatory T lymphocytes. Models representing the population dynamics of autoreactive T lymphocytes according to these two hypotheses were derived. For each model we identified how cell density affects tolerance, and predicted the corresponding phase spaces and bifurcations. We show that the simple induction of proliferative anergy, as modeled here, has a density dependence that is only partially compatible with adoptive transfers of tolerance, and that the models of tolerance mediated by specific regulatory T cells are closer to the observations. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]