Abstract
Several mechanisms exist to avoid or suppress inflammatory T-cell immune responses that could prove harmful to the host due to targeting self-antigens or commensal microbes. We hypothesized that these mechanisms could become evident when comparing the immunogenicity of a peptide from a pathogen or allergen with the conservation of its sequence in the human proteome or the healthy human microbiome. Indeed, performing such comparisons on large sets of validated T-cell epitopes, we found that epitopes that are similar with self-antigens above a certain threshold showed lower immunogenicity, presumably as a result of negative selection of T cells capable of recognizing such peptides. Moreover, we also found a reduced level of immune recognition for epitopes conserved in the commensal microbiome, presumably as a result of peripheral tolerance. These findings indicate that the existence (and potentially the polarization) of T-cell responses to a given epitope is influenced and to some extent predictable based on its similarity to self-antigens and commensal antigens.
Original language | English |
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Journal | Immunology |
Volume | 148 |
Issue number | 1 |
Pages (from-to) | 34-39 |
Number of pages | 6 |
ISSN | 0019-2805 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 2016 |
Keywords
- Bioinformatics
- T-cell recognition
- Epitopes