title: T lymphocyte recognition sites on peripheral nerve myelin P0 protein.
abstract: Synthetic peptides corresponding to the extracellular and cytoplasmic domain of bovine (b) or rat (r) peripheral myelin P0 protein were used to establish a total of 50 short-term T cell lines (TCL) from blood of eight healthy subjects. Despite expressing different HLA-DR and HLA-DQ specificities, one or more TCL (range 1-16) specific for peptide bovine P0 19-38 could be isolated from the blood of each donor. Therefore, this peptide covers an immunodominant T cell recognition site in humans. However, when testing seven bP0-19-38-specific TCL derived from blood of two healthy subjects for recognition of the corresponding human P0 sequence, no TCL showed any proliferative response. Bovine P0-19-38 differs in only two amino acid residues from the human peptide. This observation stresses the necessity for using homologous antigens when screening for T cell-mediated autoreactivity to myelin antigens in humans. Unexpectedly, we failed to establish a single P0 peptide-specific TCL from blood of four patients with acute Guillain-Barré syndrome (GBS), in which P0 is considered a putative target autoantigen. As already suggested by others, this could indicate that T cell responses to P0 do not play a pathogenic role in all GBS cases. Alternatively, in these four patients neuritogenic P0-specific T lymphocytes may have been sequestrated to peripheral nerves.
authors.affiliation: Neurologische Universitätsklinik (Klinische Forschungsgruppe für Multiple Sklerose), Julius-Maximilians-Universität, Würzburg, Germany.
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Pette
authors.forename: C
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Linington
authors.forename: C
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Gengaroli
authors.forename: H
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Grosse-Wilde
authors.forename: K V
authors.initials: KV
authors.lastname: Toyka
authors.forename: H P
authors.initials: HP
authors.lastname: Hartung
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000595:Amino Acid Sequence; D000818:Animals; D002417:Cattle; D002460:Cell Line; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008213:Lymphocyte Activation; D008297:Male; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D018993:Myelin P0 Protein; D009185:Myelin Proteins / Q000276:immunology*; D010446:Peptide Fragments / Q000235:genetics / Q000276:immunology; D010525:Peripheral Nerves / Q000378:metabolism*; D051381:Rats; D013601:T-Lymphocytes / Q000276:immunology*
chemical_list: D018993:Myelin P0 Protein; D009185:Myelin Proteins; D010446:Peptide Fragments