Functional Tolerance of CD8+ T Cells Induced by Muscle-Specific Antigen Expression

Skeletal muscles account for more than 30% of the human body, yet mechanisms of immunological tolerance to this tissue remain mainly unexplored. To investigate the mechanisms of tolerance to muscle-specific proteins, we generated transgenic mice expressing the neo-autoantigen OVA exclusively in skeletal muscle (SM-OVA mice). SM-OVA mice were bred with OT-I or OT-II mice that possess a transgenic TCR specific for OVA peptides presented by MHC class I or class II, respectively. Tolerance to OVA did not involve clonal deletion, anergy or an increased regulatory T cell compartment. Rather, CD4+ T cell tolerance resulted from a mechanism of ignorance revealed by their response following OVA immunization. In marked contrast, CD8+ T cells exhibited a loss of OVA-specific cytotoxic activity associated with up-regulation of the immunoregulatory programmed death-1 molecule. Adoptive transfer experiments further showed that OVA expression in skeletal muscle was required to maintain this functional tolerance. These results establish a novel asymmetric model of immunological tolerance to muscle autoantigens involving Ag ignorance for CD4+ T cells, whereas muscle autoantigens recognized by CD8+ T cells results in blockade of their cytotoxic function. These observations may be helpful for understanding the breakage of tolerance in autoimmune muscle diseases.