Figure 3.
Autoreactive CD4+ and CD8+ T-cell responses are HLA restricted. CFSE-based proliferation assays were performed on PBMC specimens from untreated patients with MS in the presence of anti-HLA antibodies or appropriate control immunoglobulin. The dot plots demonstrate CD4+ and CD8+ MOG-specific proliferative responses from one of the patients in the presence of the indicated antibodies. The 2 left panels demonstrate the effect of HLA class I blockade (compared with the IgG1 control), whereas the 2 right panels demonstrate the effect of HLA class II blockade (compared with IgG2a control). CFSE staining is shown on the x-axis and CD8 staining on the y-axis. The numbers represent the proliferating fraction of CD4+ (black) and CD8+ (dark gray) T cells. Anti-class I antibodies predominantly blocked CD8+ T-cell proliferation but also diminished CD4+ proliferation. Anti-class II antibodies had a predominant effect on CD4+ T-cell proliferation but also diminished CD8+ proliferation. These results are representative of HLA blockade data from 35 distinct CD4+ and CD8+ proliferative responses from 13 patients with MS responding to several different neuroantigenic peptide pools (MBP, PLP, MOG, MAG, OMGP, and MOBP).