Interleukin-21-dependent modulation of T cell antigen receptor reactivity towards low affinity peptide ligands in autoreactive CD8+ T lymphocytes

Abstract

IL-21 promotes autoimmune type-1 diabetes (T1D) in NOD mice by facilitating CD4+ T cell help to CD8+ T cells. IL-21 also enables autoreactive CD8+ T cells to respond to weak TCR ligands and induce T1D. Here, we assessed whether IL-21 is essential for T1D induction in a mouse model where the disease can occur independently of CD4 help. In this model, which expresses lymphocytic choriomeningitis virus (LCMV) glycoprotein (GP) antigen under the rat insulin promoter (RIP-GP), LCMV infection activates CD8+ T cells reactive to the GP-derived GP33 peptide that attack pancreatic islets and cause T1D. We show that IL-21 deficiency in RIP-GP mice did not impair T1D induction by LCMV expressing the wildtype GP33 peptide. Surprisingly, LCMV-L6F, expressing a weak peptide mimic of GP33, induced T1D more efficiently in Il21−/−RIP-GP mice than in controls. However, LCMV-C4Y expressing a very weak peptide mimic of GP33 did not induce T1D in Il21−/− mice, but T cells from the infected mice caused disease in lymphopenic RIP-GP mice upon adoptive transfer. Using Nur77GFP reporter mice, we show that CD8+ T cells from Il21−/− mice expressing the GP33-specific transgenic P14 TCR showed increased reactivity towards low affinity TCR ligands. Collectively, our findings show that IL-21 is not always required for T1D induction by autoreactive CD8+ T cells, and suggest that IL-21 may play an important role in regulating CD8+ T cell reactivity towards low affinity TCR ligands.