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Original Article |
Correspondence to: Martin F. Bachmann, Basel Institute for Immunology, Grenzacherstrasse 487, CH 4005 Basel, Switzerland. Tel:41-61-605-1228 Fax:41-61-605-1364 E-mail:bachmann{at}bii.ch.
It has been proposed that CD2, which is highly expressed on T cells, serves to enhance T cellantigen presenting cell (APC) adhesion and costimulate T cell activation. Here we analyzed the role of CD2 using CD2-deficient mice crossed with transgenic mice expressing a T cell receptor specific for lymphocytic choriomeningitis virus (LCMV)-derived peptide p33. We found that absence of CD2 on T cells shifted the p33-specific doseresponse curve in vitro by a factor of 310. In comparison, stimulation of T cells in the absence of lymphocyte functionassociated antigen (LFA)-1intercellular adhesion molecule (ICAM)-1 interaction shifted the doseresponse curve by a factor of 10, whereas absence of both CD2CD48 and LFA-1ICAM-1 interactions shifted the response by a factor of ~100. This indicates that CD2 and LFA-1 facilitate T cell activation additively. T cell activation at low antigen density was blocked at its very first steps, as T cell APC conjugate formation, TCR triggering, and Ca2+ fluxes were affected by the absence of CD2. In vivo, LCMV-specific, CD2-deficient T cells proliferated normally upon infection with live virus but responded in a reduced fashion upon cross-priming. Thus, CD2 sets quantitative thresholds and fine-tunes T cell activation both in vitro and in vivo.
Key Words: adhesion, costimulation, virus, cross-priming, T cell
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