Thymus epithelium and T cell tolerance

Date

Apr 29, 2011

Time

11:00 AM - 12:00 PM

Speaker

Ludger Klein

Affiliation

Institute for Immunology, Ludwigs-Maximilians University Munich

Series

CMCB Life Sciences Seminar

Language

en

Main Topic

Biologie

Other Topics

Biologie, Medizin

Host

Karsten Kretschmer

Description

Tolerance to "self" is a fundamental property of the immune system; its breakdown can lead to autoimmune diseases such as multiple scleroris and diabetes. Selection processes in the thymus are essential for the generation of a self-tolerant T cell repertoire, either through removal of potentially dangerous T cells or through the induction of regulatory T cells. Our aim is to understand how the thymic microenvironment orchestrates these cell fate decisions. Publications: Hinterberger M, Aichinger M, Prazeres da Costa O, Voehringer D, Hoffmann R and Klein L (2010) Autonomous role of medullary thymic cells in central CD4+ T cell tolerance. Nature Immunology 11(6):512-19 Aschenbrenner K, D`Cruz LM, Vollmann EH, Hinterberger M, Emmerich J, Swee LK, Rolink A and Klein L (2007) Selection of FoxP3+ regulatory T cells specific for self-antigen expressed and presented by Aire+ medullary thymic epithelial cells. Nature Immunology 8(4):351-58 D`Cruz L and Klein L (2005) Development and function of agonist induced CD25+FoxP3+ regulatory T cells un the absence of Interleukin 2 signaling. Nature Immunology 6(11):1152-59 Derbinski J, Schulte A, Kyewski B and Klein L (2001) "Promiscuous" gene expression in thymic medullary epithelial cells mirrors the "preipheral self". Nature Immunology 2(11):1032-36

Last modified: Apr 26, 2011, 5:37:59 PM