Tissue-specific recognition of mouse CD1 molecules

Although there is evidence that some members of the CD1 gene family may present particular types of foreign Ags, such as mycobacterial lipid Ags or synthetic hydophobic peptides, to αβ T cells, most CD1 isotypes share the unusual property of being recognized by a high frequency of naturally autoreactive αβ T cells. In the case of mouse CD1.1 and its human counterpart CD1d, a significant fraction of the autoreactive T cells express semi-invariant TCRs, CD1.1-specific T cells have a restricted tissue distribution and very promptly secrete a large panel of potent cytokines, including IL-4 and IFN-γ, upon primary activation through their TCR, suggesting that they might regulate some immune responses in these tissues. We show here that their autorecognition of mouse CD1.1 is highly dependent upon the cell type in which CD1.1 is expressed. For example, some of these T cells only respond to CD1.1 expressed by splenic, dendritic cells, some respond preferentially to cortical thymocytes, and others respond to splenic B cells. Tissue specificity of CD1.1 recognition is also observed with various cell lines transfected with CD1.1 cDNA. These results show that different CD1.1 self Ags are expressed in different tissues and can be specifically recognized by autoreactive T cells. They suggest that CD1.1 may be naturally associated with a variety of self ligands that overlap only partially in different cell types.