Novel function of complement C3d as an autologous helper T-cell target

The C3d fragment of complement component C3 has been shown to enhance immune responses to antigens that lack T-cell epitopes such as bacterial polysaccharides. C3d binds to the B-cell complement receptor 2 (CR2 or CD21); this binding serves as a co-activation signal to the B cell when the polysaccharide antigen portion binds simultaneously to the B-cell receptor ( surface Ig). Bringing together receptor-associated signal transduction molecules CD19 and Ig alpha/beta, respectively, results in a lower threshold of activation. Paradoxically, C3d has also been shown to enhance antibody titers in the CD21 knockout ( KO) mouse model as well as increase Th1 and Th2 cytokine secretion, suggesting that that an auxiliary CR2-independent pathway of immune activation may exist. We hypothesized that in addition to its molecular adjuvant property that enhances signal 1 during B-cell activation (co-signal 1), C3d also contains T-cell epitopes that are able to stimulate autoreactive C3d peptide-specific helper T cells which we term 'co-signal 2'. Using the EpiMatrix T-cell epitope-mapping algorithm, we identified 11 putative T-cell epitopes in C3d, a very high epitope density for a 302 amino-acid sequence. Eight of these epitope candidates were synthesized and shown to bind a variety of class II HLA-DR molecules of different haplotypes, and to stimulate C3d peptide-specific T cells to secrete pro-inflammatory cytokines in vitro. Further, we demonstrate a C3d-peptide specific increase in CD4(+) intracellular IFN-gamma(+) T cells in peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) exposed to C3d peptides in vitro. We believe that the discovery of these autologous T cells autoreactive for C3d provides evidence supporting the 'co-signal 2' hypothesis and may offer a novel explanation of the CD21 KO paradox.