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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2021 Sep 1.
Published in final edited form as: Cell Immunol. 2020 Jul 15;355:104173. doi: 10.1016/j.cellimm.2020.104173

Figure 3: T cell tissue-specific residency strategized by TCR specificity and antigen recognition efficiency.

Figure 3:

TCR specificity and antigen recognition efficiency are thought to guide T cell homing, tissue residency, and function in peripheral tissues. (A, D) Tcon recognition of high-efficiency agonistic antigens is hypothesized to maintain immunogenic sentinel memory T cells at sites that will likely become routes of future infection. (B) Treg recognition of intermediate-efficiency agonistic self-antigens is hypothesized to provide homeostatic survival signals that guide homing and survival while maintaining phenotypic and functional stability of tissue-resident Tregs. (C) Tcon recognition of peripheral self-antigens as low-efficiency non-agonistic ligands (i.e. the positive-selecting MHC-ligands of positive thymic selection) is hypothesized to provide homeostatic survival signals that guide homing and survival of the Tcon repertoire. (E) Inflammatory conditions may amplify a low-efficiency homeostatic TCR recognition into an intermediate TCR efficiency signaling mode that favors naïve Tcon differentiation into Tregs to counter epitope spread to tissue-specific self-antigens.