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Science 29 October 1999:
Vol. 286. no. 5441, p. 869
DOI: 10.1126/science.286.5441.869g
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T cells may not have an "appetite," but Huang et al. (p. 952) report that T cells can ingest the major histocompatibility complex (MHC) proteins bound to a specific antigenic peptide. Internalization begins within minutes, and the internalized MHC-peptide complex is taken to an acidic compartment. However, while the MHC-peptide complex is on the surface of the T cell, it could serve as a target for other T cells that have the same specificity. Thus, the T cell could be destroyed by its comrades. If this process also happened in vivo, it could be a mechanism by which T cells are "exhausted" when large concentrations of antigen are present.




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