A mechanism for expansion of regulatory T cell repertoire and its role in self tolerance

T cell receptor (TCR) signaling plays a key role in T cell fate determination. Precursor cells expressing TCRs within a certain low affinity range for self peptide-MHC complexes undergo positive selection and differentiate into naïve T cells expressing a highly diverse self-MHC restricted TCR repertoire. In contrast, precursors displaying TCRs with a high affinity for “self” are either eliminated through TCR agonist induced apoptosis (negative selection)(1) or restrained by regulatory CD4(+) T (Treg) cells, whose differentiation and function are controlled by the X-chromosome encoded transcription factor Foxp3 (review(2)). Foxp3 is expressed in a fraction of self-reactive T cells that escape negative selection in response to agonist driven TCR signals combined with interleukin-2 (IL-2) receptor signaling. In addition to Treg cells, TCR agonist-driven selection results in the generation of several other specialized T cell lineages like NKT and MAIT cells(3). Although the latter exhibit a restricted TCR repertoire, Treg cells display a highly diverse collection of TCRs(4-6), Here we explored whether a specialized mechanism enables agonist driven selection of Treg cells with a diverse TCR repertoire and its significance for self-tolerance. We found that intronic Foxp3 enhancer CNS3 acts as an epigenetic switch that confers a poised state to the Foxp3 promoter in precursor cells to make Treg cell lineage commitment responsive to a broad range of TCR stimuli, particularly to suboptimal ones. CNS3-dependent expansion of the TCR repertoire enables Treg cells to effectively control self-reactive T cells, especially when thymic negative selection was genetically impaired. Our findings highlight the complementary roles of these two main mechanisms of self-tolerance.