Recognition of Conserved Amino Acid Motifs of Common Viruses and Its Role in Autoimmunity

PLoS Pathogens

Mireia Sospedra¹  Ethel-Michele de Villiers¹  Clemencia Pinilla¹  Roland Martin¹  Yingdong Zhao¹  Paolo A Muraro¹  Harald zur Hausen²  Christa Hamashin³ 

[1] Cellular Immunology Section, Neuroimmunology Branch, National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland, United States of America;Computational and System Biology Group, Biometric Research Branch, National Cancer Institute, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland, United States of America;Division for the Characterization of Tumorviruses, Deutsches Krebsforschungszentrum (German Cancer Research Center), Heidelberg, Germany

关键词: T cells;    Multiple sclerosis;    Protein domains;    Cerebrospinal fluid;    Autoimmune diseases;    DNA-binding proteins;    Pattern recognition receptors;    Viral pathogens;   

DOI  :  10.1371/journal.ppat.0010041

学科分类：生物科学（综合）

来源: Public Library of Science

【 摘 要 】

The triggers of autoimmune diseases such as multiple sclerosis (MS) remain elusive. Epidemiological studies suggest that common pathogens can exacerbate and also induce MS, but it has been difficult to pinpoint individual organisms. Here we demonstrate that in vivo clonally expanded CD4+ T cells isolated from the cerebrospinal fluid of a MS patient during disease exacerbation respond to a poly-arginine motif of the nonpathogenic and ubiquitous Torque Teno virus. These T cell clones also can be stimulated by arginine-enriched protein domains from other common viruses and recognize multiple autoantigens. Our data suggest that repeated infections with common pathogenic and even nonpathogenic viruses could expand T cells specific for conserved protein domains that are able to cross-react with tissue-derived and ubiquitous autoantigens.

【 授权许可】

CC BY