Skip to main content
. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2017 Feb 7.
Published in final edited form as: Cell. 2016 Jul 28;166(3):530–531. doi: 10.1016/j.cell.2016.07.018

Figure 1. A Simplified View of T-B Lymphocyte Interactions in the Presence or Absence of the AIRE Gene’s Influence on T Cell Tolerance.

Figure 1

Normally, follicular helper CD4+ T cells emerge from the thymus with those expressing self-specific T cell receptors either purged or suppressed (upper part of the figure). They are then able to stimulate B cells specific for the same antigen to mutate their antibody genes to achieve higher affinities after a bolus of immunizing antigen or an infection. In AIRE-deficient subjects, it is suggested that the absence of T cell tolerance allows multiple T-B interactions of this sort due to the continuous presence of self-antigen, resulting in the very high affinities seen in Meyer et al. (2016). Here, arrows denote increases in antibody affinity.