Antigen Presenting B Cells Facilitate CD4 T Cell Cooperation Resulting in Enhanced Generation of Effector and Memory CD4 T Cells

We show that the in vivo generation of cytokine-producing CD4 T cells specific for a given major histocompatibility class-II (MHCII)-binding peptide of hen egg lysozyme (HEL) is facilitated when mice are immunized with splenic antigen presenting cells (APC) pulsed with this HEL peptide and another peptide that binds a different MHCII molecule. This enhanced generation of peptide-specific effector CD4 T cells requires that the same splenic APC be pulsed with both peptides. Pulsed B cells, but not pulsed dendritic cells (DCs), can mediate CD4 T cell cooperation, which can be blocked by disrupting OX40-OX40L (CD134-CD252) interactions. In addition, the generation of HEL peptide-specific CD4 T cell memory is greater when mice are primed with B cells pulsed with the two peptides than with B cells pulsed with the HEL- peptide alone. Based on our findings, we suggest CD4 T cell cooperation is important for vaccine design, underlies the phenomenon of “epitope-spreading” seen in autoimmunity, and that the efficacy of B cell-depletion in the treatment of human cell-mediated autoimmune disease is due to the abrogation of the interactions between autoimmune CD4 T cells that facilitates their activation.