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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2014 Mar 1.
Published in final edited form as: Autoimmunity. 2013 Jan 18;46(2):102–114. doi: 10.3109/08916934.2012.757597

Figure 2. Origin of T cell help for anti-nuclear B cells.

Figure 2

Source of T cell help to antinuclear B cells in SLE. (A) Defect in central and/or peripheral T cell tolerance in a lupus-prone background allows autoreactive CD4 T cells reactive with peptides from histones and/or germline-encoded BCR-V regions to escape self-tolerance and help anti-nuclear B cells. (B) Self-tolerance in CD4 T cells is intact with respect to peptides from histones and germline-encoded BCR-V regions; however CD4 T cells that recognize somatically generated BCR-V region-derived peptides provide a source of help to autoreactive B cells. Autoimmune prone-genetic backgrounds might have a defective regulation of this type of T-B interaction, resulting in the production of anti-nuclear antibodies by an autoimmune B cell.