Fig. 2: T-cell and B-cell interaction in celiac disease. | Mucosal Immunology

Fig. 2: T-cell and B-cell interaction in celiac disease.

From: Single-cell approaches to dissect adaptive immune responses involved in autoimmunity: the case of celiac disease

Fig. 2

Conceivably, gluten-specific CD4+ T cells can provide help to both transglutaminase 2 (TG2)-specific and gluten-specific B cells. The help to TG2-specific B cells is possible by involvement of TG2:gluten complexes. In a hapten-carrier like fashion, TG2-specific B cells can take up such complexes by BCR-mediated endocytosis, and internalized gluten peptides containing T-cell-relevant gluten epitopes can then be presented to gluten-specific CD4+ T cells bound to the disease-associated HLA-DQ molecules. Gluten-specific B cells also take up gluten peptides, either alone or as part of TG2:gluten complexes, in a similar manner and present them to gluten-specific CD4+ T cells. Antigen presentation to the CD4+ T cell activates both the B cells and T cells, and leads to proliferation of both populations and induction of differentiation pathways.

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