Adaptive T cell tuning in immune regulation and immunotherapy of autoimmune diseases✰

Abstract

Lymphocyte receptors confer antigen specificity on the adaptive immune response. Increasing evidence points to the role of adaptive tuning particularly amongst CD4⁺ T cell responses. This review summarises how T cell tuning impacts on critically important aspects of immune regulation including thymic selection, the immune response to chronic antigen exposure and antigen-specific immunotherapy of autoimmune conditions. Recent work has revealed a novel mechanism for T cell anergy and regulatory type 1 T cell differentiation through a limitation of T cell receptor mediated signalling combined with epigenetic priming of tolerance associated genes.