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Concept
Antigen presentation
Summary
Antigen presentation is a vital immune process that is essential for T cell immune response triggering. Because T cells recognize only fragmented antigens displayed on cell surfaces, antigen processing must occur before the antigen fragment, now bound to the major histocompatibility complex (MHC), is transported to the surface of the cell, a process known as presentation, where it can be recognized by a T-cell receptor. If there has been an infection with viruses or bacteria, the cell will present an endogenous or exogenous peptide fragment derived from the antigen by MHC molecules. There are two types of MHC molecules which differ in the behaviour of the antigens: MHC class I molecules (MHC-I) bind peptides from the cell cytosol, while peptides generated in the endocytic vesicles after internalisation are bound to MHC class II (MHC-II). Cellular membranes separate these two cellular environments - intracellular and extracellular. Each T cell can only recognize tens to hundreds of copies of a unique sequence of a single peptide among thousands of other peptides presented on the same cell, because an MHC molecule in one cell can bind to quite a large range of peptides. Predicting which (fragments of) antigens will be presented to the immune system by a certain MHC/HLA type is difficult, but the technology involved is improving.
Cytotoxic T cells (also known as Tc, killer T cell, or cytotoxic T-lymphocyte (CTL)) express CD8 co-receptors and are a population of T cells that are specialized for inducing programmed cell death of other cells. Cytotoxic T cells regularly patrol all body cells to maintain the organismal homeostasis. Whenever they encounter signs of disease, caused for example by the presence of viruses or intracellular bacteria or a transformed tumor cell, they initiate processes to destroy the potentially harmful cell. All nucleated cells in the body (along with platelets) display class I major histocompatibility complex (MHC-I molecules). Antigens generated endogenously within these cells are bound to MHC-I molecules and presented on the cell surface.
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