Evidence for involvement of clonal anergy in MHC class I and class II disparate skin allograft tolerance after the termination of intrathymic clonal deletion

Mechanisms of cyclophosphamide (CP)-induced tolerance to class I (D) and class II (IE) alloantigens were studied. Transplantation tolerance across H-2D plus IE Ag-barriers has been achieved when B10.Thy-1.1 (K^b,IA^b,IE^-,D^b; Thy-1.1) mice were primed i.v. with 9 x 10⁷ spleen cells plus 3 x 10⁷ bone marrow cells from B10.A(5R) mice (5R; k^b,IA^b,IE^b,D(d); Thy-1.2) and treated i.p. with 200 mg/kg of CP 2 days later. The tolerant state in the early and the late stage was confirmed by prolonged acceptance of donor-type skin grafts, and in vitro unresponsiveness to donor Ag. In the tolerant B10.Thy-1.1 mice treated with 5R cells 28 days earlier and followed by CP, intrathymic clonal deletion of Vβ11⁺ T cells reactive to IE-encoded antigens was observed in association with intrathymic mixed chimerism. 5R skin survived, however, even after the clonal deletion of Vβ11⁺ T cells terminated by 180 days after tolerance induction. Vβ11⁺ T cells which reappeared in the periphery of the recipient B10.Thy-1.1 mice bearing 5R skin at this stage, were not capable of proliferating in response to receptor cross-linking with Vβ11-specific mAb. Furthermore, the CTL activity against class I (D(d)) alloantigens of spleen cells from these tolerant mice was restored by the addition of IL-2 to MLC. Thus, our experiments provide direct evidence that tolerance to both class I (D(d)) and class II (IE^b) alloantigens by clonal allergy occurs during the termination of intrathymic clonal deletion. These results clearly show practical hierarchy of the mechanisms of transplantation tolerance.