A shared epitope of the interphotoreceptor retinoid-binding protein recognized by the CD4+ and CD8+ autoreactive T cells

We previously demonstrated that cultures of rat uveitogenic T cells rapidly become dominated by CD4(+) cells, but activation of CD8(+) autoreactive T cells also occurred during the in vitro culture of in vivo-primed T cells. In the present study, we show that the commonly used uveitogenic peptide, interphotoreceptor retinoid-binding protein (IRBP) 1-20, generated both CD4(+) and CD8(+) autoreactive T cells in the C57BL/6 (B6) mouse and that this 20-mer contains at least two distinct antigenic epitopes. To determine whether the CD8 response was Ag-specific and whether CD4(+) and CD8(+) IRBP1-20-specific T cells recognize distinct, antigenic epitopes, we prepared highly purified CD4(+) and CD8(+) T cells from IRBP1-20-primed mice and tested their proliferative response to a large panel of truncated peptides derived from IRBP1-20. The results showed that both CD4(+) and CD8(+) T cells recognized the same spectrum of peptides. In addition, peptides P10-18 were found to bind effectively to CD8(+) IRBP1-20-specific T cells when complexed with recombinant H-2K(b) and also stimulate the proliferation and cytokine production of CD4(+) IRBP1-20-specific T cells. Our results document for the first time that CD8(+) and CD4(+) autoreactive T cells display characteristic epitope recognition and they both recognize the same core epitope.