TCR Peptide Therapy in Autoimmunity

T cell-mediated autoimmunity may be viewed as the selection and expansion of “self” reactive clones that are not deleted during thymic maturation. The thymic negative selection process presumably does not function because organ specific autoantigens are virtually absent, and one may assume that potentially pernicious T cells are continually replenished from stem cells throughout the life of an individual. The presence of autoreactive T cells in the circulation of clinically normal individuals indicates that natural mechanisms effectively regulate these T cells. The goal of this manuscript is to describe and evaluate one such regulatory mechanism directed at epitopes found on germline T cell receptor V region sequences.