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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2017 Apr 1.
Published in final edited form as: Nat Rev Immunol. 2016 Mar 14;16(4):247–258. doi: 10.1038/nri.2016.9

Figure 4. Aire enforces central tolerance toward self-antigens.

Figure 4

A) In wildtype thymus, Aire in medullary thymic epithelial cells (mTECs), promotes ectopic expression of self-antigens (Ag), which include melanoma Ags. T cells recognizing these antigens undergo negative selection to enforce self-tolerance. B) In Aire deficienct thymus or thymus treated with anti-RANKL antibody, lack of self-antigen expression allows escape of self-reactive T cells from negative selection, which predisposes to autoimmunity.