“Role of B cells in central T cell tolerance”

Tolerance to self-antigens is a fundamental property of the immune system. During central tolerance induction in the thymus, autoreactive T cells are either eliminated or diverted into the regulatory T cell lineage. Both processes are dependent on the presentation of self-antigens by thymic antigen presenting cells (APCs). Commonly, dendritic cells and medullary thymic epithelial cells are believed to represent the key APCs for central T cell tolerance. The thymus also harbours a distinct population of B cells, raising the possibility that thymic B cells serve a non-redundant APC function in central T cell tolerance induction. I will discuss our ongoing work to test this hypothesis through large scale comparisons of the TCR composition of ‘normally’ selected T cell repertoires versus repertoires selected in the absence of B cells or Dendritic cells or both.