Learn about the flu shot, COVID-19 vaccine, and our masking policy »
New to MyHealth?
Manage Your Care From Anywhere.
Access your health information from any device with MyHealth. You can message your clinic, view lab results, schedule an appointment, and pay your bill.
ALREADY HAVE AN ACCESS CODE?
DON'T HAVE AN ACCESS CODE?
NEED MORE DETAILS?
MyHealth for Mobile
Get the iPhone MyHealth app »
Get the Android MyHealth app »
Abstract
Central tolerance can be mediated by peripheral dendritic cells (DCs) that transport innocuous antigens (Ags) to the thymus for presentation to developing T cells, but the responsible DC subsets remained poorly defined. Immature plasmacytoid DCs (pDCs) express CCR9, a chemokine receptor involved in migration of T cell precursors to the thymus. We show here that CCR9 mediated efficient thymic entry of endogenous or i.v. transfused pDCs. pDCs activated by Toll-like receptor (TLR) ligands downregulated CCR9 and lost their ability to home to the thymus. Moreover, endogenous pDCs took up subcutaneously injected fluorescent Ag and, in the absence of TLR signals, transported Ag to the thymus in a CCR9-dependent fashion. Injected, Ag-loaded pDCs effectively deleted Ag-specific thymocytes, and this thymic clonal deletion required CCR9-mediated homing and was prevented by infectious signals. Thus, peripheral pDCs can contribute to immune tolerance through CCR9-dependent transport of peripheral Ags and subsequent deletion of Ag-reactive thymocytes.
View details for DOI 10.1016/j.immuni.2012.01.017
View details for Web of Science ID 000302048400015
View details for PubMedID 22444632
View details for PubMedCentralID PMC3315699