Encounter with Antigen-Specific Primed CD4 T Cells Promotes MHC Class II Degradation in Dendritic Cells
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Encounter with antigen-specific primed CD4 T cells promotes MHC class II degradation in dendritic cells Kazuyuki Furutaa, Satoshi Ishidob, and Paul A. Rochea,1 aExperimental Immunology Branch, National Cancer Institute, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD 20892; and bLaboratory of Infectious Immunity, RIKEN Research Center for Allergy and Immunology, Yokohama, Kanagawa 230-0045, Japan Edited by Peter Cresswell, Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, CT, and approved October 12, 2012 (received for review August 9, 2012) Major histocompatibility complex class II molecules (MHC-II) on murine APCs and acquired by mouse CD4 T cells (14); however, antigen presenting cells (APCs) engage the TCR on antigen-specific this acquisition is antigen independent. Huang et al. have shown CD4 T cells, thereby providing the specificity required for T cell that MHC-I can be transferred to antigen-specific CD8 T cells priming and the induction of an effective immune response. In this after conjugate formation (15); however, this process merely study, we have asked whether antigen-loaded dendritic cells (DCs) transfers intact MHC protein from the APC to the antigen- fi that have been in contact with antigen-specific CD4 T cells retain the speci c T-cell and promotes T-cell fratricide (15). Prolonged interactions of antigen-loaded DCs with antigen- ability to stimulate additional naïve T cells. We show that encounter fi with antigen-specific primed CD4 T cells induces the degradation of speci c T cells are required to initiate naïve CD4 T-cell activa- surface MHC-II in antigen-loaded DCs and inhibits the ability of tion and proliferation (16, 17). This process is tightly regulated to allow the effective initiation of an immune response. However, these DCs to stimulate additional naïve CD4 T cells. Cross-linking once this response is established, there could be mechanisms with MHC-II mAb as a surrogate for T-cell engagement also inhibits that limit overstimulation of additional antigen-specificTcells, APC function and induces MHC-II degradation by promoting the a process that could initiate a pathological inflammatory cascade. clustering of MHC-II present in lipid raft membrane microdomains, In this study, we have investigated the function of DCs after a process that leads to MHC-II endocytosis and degradation in lyso- engagement with antigen-specific CD4 T cells. We find that an fi somes. Encounter of DCs with antigen-speci c primed T cells or encounter of antigen-experienced T cells with antigen-bearing engagement of MHC-II with antibodies promotes the degradation APCs promotes the down-regulation of surface MHC-II ex- of both immunologically relevant and irrelevant MHC-II molecules. pression in DCs and renders these DCs incapable of stimulating IMMUNOLOGY These data demonstrate that engagement of MHC-II on DCs after additional naïve CD4 T cells. Essentially identical results are encounter with antigen-specific primed CD4 T cells promotes the obtained when MHC-II was cross-linked with MHC-II mAb, down-regulation of cell surface MHC-II in DCs, thereby attenuating a process that results in lipid raft-dependent MHC-II clustering, additional activation of naïve CD4 T cells by these APCs. endocytosis, and lysosomal degradation. Finally, we show that the down-regulation of MHC-II by T-cell engagement or MHC- T-cell activation | protein aggregation II cross-linking severely limits the ability of the DC to stimulate even unrelated naïve CD4 T cells. Our data thus demonstrate endritic cells (DCs) are professional antigen presenting cells that one consequence of CD4 T-cell recognition of antigen- (APCs) that function to prime naïve CD4 T cells through bearing APCs is down-regulation of surface pMHC-II by endo- D cytosis and lysosomal degradation, thereby limiting the ability of cell surface major histocompatibility complex class II (MHC-II) fi molecules. Immature DCs have high potency of antigen capture these APCs to interact with additional antigen-speci c T cells. and processing. After capturing antigen, DCs migrate to draining Results and Discussion lymph nodes, where they mature and express peptide-loaded MHC-II (pMHC-II) on their cell surface (1, 2). The pMHC-II on Encounter with Antigen-Specific CD4 T Cells Inhibits Subsequent MHC- the surface of APCs then “presents” the expressed antigenic II–Restricted APC Function of DCs. Although it is well known that peptide to naïve antigen-specific CD4 T cells, a process that DCs can efficiently prime naïve CD4 T cells, it remains to be results in the proliferation and activation of CD4 T cells (3). seen whether these DCs are capable of activating additional In APCs, cell surface MHC-II expression is tightly regulated naïve CD4 T cells of the same (or differing) specificity after they have completed their task of T-cell priming. To examine this and is important for the generation and propagation of an im- k mune response (4). Newly synthesized MHC-II forms a complex question, we have pretreated HEL-pulsed DCs with I-A - – with a chaperone protein termed the invariant chain (Ii) in the HEL46–61 restricted 3A9 CD4 T cells before adding additional fl endoplasmic reticulum. The MHC-II–Ii complex is transported carboxy uorescein succinimidyl ester (CFSE)-tagged naïve 3A9 to cell surface, internalized, and targeted to the antigen pre- T cells to the culture. Preincubation of the DCs with naïve senting compartment where Ii is degraded and MHC-II loads control or 3A9 T cells had no effect on the ability of the DCs to A with antigenic peptides (5). Peptide-loaded MHC-II is then simulate additional naïve 3A9 T cells (Fig. 1 ). Surprisingly, transported to the cell surface to present antigenic peptides to preincubation of the DCs with previously primed 3A9 CD4 CD4 T cells. Once at the cell surface, pMHC can internalize and T cells, but not control T cells, almost completely prevented the enter the endocytic pathway. Some fraction of internalized subsequent proliferation of CFSE-labeled naïve 3A9 T cells by A A pMHC-II is then recycled back to cell surface (6–8) while an- these DCs (Fig. 1 and Fig. S1 ). To rule out the possibility that other fraction is ubiquitinated by the E3 ubiquitin ligase March-I the proliferation of the T cells in the preculture affected naïve and targeted for degradation in lysosomes (9, 10). CD4 T-cell proliferation, the entire preculture was irradiated There are many reports demonstrating that upon conjugate formation between antigen-specific CD4 T cells with antigen- bearing APCs, the TCR internalizes and is degraded in the T Author contributions: K.F. and P.A.R. designed research; K.F. performed research; S.I. con- cell, a process that is thought to limit T-cell activation by APCs tributed new reagents/analytic tools; K.F. and P.A.R. analyzed data; and K.F. and P.A.R. (11, 12). This process can be mimicked by TCR cross-linking wrote the paper. with mAb (13), leading to the widely held belief that in vivo TCR The authors declare no conflict of interest. cross-linking by APC ligands promotes TCR endocytosis and This article is a PNAS Direct Submission. degradation. By contrast, the fate of the stimulatory pMHC-II 1To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: [email protected]. complexes on APCs after an encounter with antigen-specific This article contains supporting information online at www.pnas.org/lookup/suppl/doi:10. CD4 T cells has not been followed. MHC-II can be shed from 1073/pnas.1213868109/-/DCSupplemental. www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.1213868109 PNAS Early Edition | 1of6 Downloaded by guest on September 24, 2021 Fig. 1. Preculture with antigen-specific T cells inhibits subsequent naïve T-cell proliferation by DCs. (A) HEL-loaded DCs were pretreated alone (no T cells), with naïve or primed control CD4 T cells − k (3A9 tg ), or with naïve or primed I-A -HEL46–61– specific 3A9 CD4 T cells (3A9 tg+), for 4 h at 1:1 ratio. After various treatments, naïve CFSE-labeled 3A9 CD4 T cells were added to the culture at a 1:10 ratio (DC:naïve T-cell), and naïve 3A9 CD4 T-cell pro- liferation was measured 48 h later by FACS analysis. (B) HEL-loaded DCs were preincubated alone (no T cells) or with primed 3A9 tg− or primed 3A9 tg+ T cells for 4 h. The entire pretreated culture was ir- radiated with 3,000 rad, washed, and then added directly to CFSE-labeled 3A9 T cells. In each experi- ment the division index was calculated by using FlowJo software. The division index under each con- dition was expressed relative to that culture condi- tion in which CD4 T cells were not added. The data shown are the mean ± SD from three independent experiments. *P < 0.05 (relative to no T cells control). before the addition of CFSE-labeled naïve 3A9 T cells. Once Cross-Linking of MHC-II Promotes Endocytosis and Lysosomal again, preculture with antigen-specific T cells prevented sub- Degradation of Surface MHC-II in DCs. The APC-mediated down- sequent naïve CD4 T-cell proliferation, whereas preculture with regulation of the TCR upon T-cell:APC conjugate formation can nonspecific T cells did not (Fig. 1B). Lastly, we purified the DCs be mimicked by TCR cross-linking using anti-TCR mAb (13). To after the preculture period with nonspecific or antigen-specificT mimic the engagement of MHC-II with ligand(s) on T cells, we cells, and even these purified DCs were unable to stimulate naïve cross-linked MHC-II on the surface of DCs by using MHC-II 3A9 T-cell proliferation (Fig. S1B), demonstrating that the en- mAb.