Autoreactive T cells in healthy individuals show tolerance in vitro with characteristics similar to but distinct from clonal anergy

Peripheral tolerance to self antigens has been suspected to play an important role in the regulation of the immune response in humans since autoreactive T cells can be isolated from the peripheral blood of healthy individuals. The mechanism of this tolerance is not known, but a number of groups have shown that autoreactive T cells can be induced to proliferate in vitro by the addition of their specific antigen and exogenous interleukin (IL)‐2. In this report, we present the analysis of autoreactive T cells, isolated from healthy individuals, to the autoantigen GpIIb‐IIIa present on circulating bone‐marrow‐derived cells and on thymic epithelial cells. We found that the response of GpIIb‐IIIa autoreactive T cells in vitro, when stimulated with GpIIb‐IIIa, shares characteristics with the response found for anergic T cells. In response to GpIIb‐IIIa, the GpIIb‐IIIa‐autoreactive T cells are neither able to proliferate nor produce IL‐2 on their own, but do express IL‐2 receptors α on their cell surface and produce IFN‐γ. This state of unresponsiveness can be broken by the addition of exogenous IL‐2 and IL‐7, as in the case of anergic T cells. However, GpIIb‐IIIa‐autoreactive T cells differ from anergic T cells in their capacity to be stimulated by IL‐12 and by their production of IL‐2 mRNA. Interestingly, once the unresponsive state to GpIIb‐IIIa has been broken by the addition of IL‐2, GpIIb‐IIIa autoreactive T cells can produce IL‐2 and proliferate when restimulated by GpIIb‐IIIa alone. Altogether, these results suggest that the tolerance of GpIIb‐IIIa autoreactive T cells from healthy individuals could involve post‐transcriptional regulation of IL‐2 expression.