A T cell receptor (TCR) antagonist competitively inhibits serial TCR triggering by low‐affinity ligands, but does not affect triggering by high‐affinity anti‐CD3 antibodies

摘要

AbstractIt has been demonstrated that modified peptides which fail to induce detectable T cell responses can act as T cell receptor (TCR) antagonists when presented together with agonist by the same antigen‐presenting cell (APC). We report that a TCR antagonist competitively inhibits TCR triggering induced by low‐affinity ligands such as agonistic peptides or bacterial superantigens. However, the same antagonist cannot inhibit TCR triggering and T cell activation induced by high‐affinity anti‐CD3 antibodies that engage most TCR at once. These results indicate that TCR antagonists inhibit T cell responses by interfering with the ongoing process of serial triggering, rather than by delivering an inhibitory signal to