Both MHC and background gene heterozygosity alter T cell receptor repertoire selection in an antigen-specific response

Abstract

Many autoimmune diseases are associated with specific class II MHC alleles; however, this association is not complete. One explanation for the variable expression of disease in susceptible individuals is that variability in the TCR repertoire may alter the potential to generate pathogenic autoreactive T cells. The current study was undertaken to examine the possibility that MHC and background heterozygosity, which is the norm in the outbred human population, alters the expressed TCR repertoire and, if so, whether this has an impact on peptide recognition and antigenic specificity. We, therefore, systematically analysed the beef insulin-specific TCR repertoire in inbred BALB c mice before and after introduction of MHC heterozygosity ( BALB c × BALB.K)F 1 mice, or MHC and background gene heterozygosity ( BALB c × A J ) F 1 mice. We show that T cells from all three repertoires are predominantly A d-restricted and recognize the same immunodominant peptide. Despite this, the beef insulin-specific TCR repertoires in F 1 mice differ from those seen in BALB c mice with the most dramatic changes seen in ( BALB c × A J ) F 1 mice. These changes are accompanied by subtle differences in the antigenic specificity of the T cells. The results demonstrate that both MHC and background gene heterozygosity affect TCR repertoire selection, suggesting that the variable expression of autoimmune disease in individuals with a susceptible MHC allele may result, in part, from variability in the TCR repertoire introduced by this heterozygosity.