Workshop Summary: Relationship of Idiotypes and MHC Networks

Abstract

Studies of Ir genes have focused on the major histocompatibility complex (MHC)-restricted T cell responses to antigen. Such cells play major and well defined roles in the development of the immune response. However, these roles are primarily of the effector type; regulatory interactions may derive from other sets of T cells or B cells with poorly defined behaviours. One hypothesis, often viewed as competing, for regulation of immune responses is derived from the Idiotypic Network Theory by Jerne. In most models based on this form of regulation, antigen and MHC do not play central roles; rather, it is the interaction of receptors within the immune system that governs the response pattern. Since idiotypes were originally defined as variable region markers of antibodies, such studies have tended to focus on B cell responses exclusively. The goal of this workshop was to examine the possible interplay of these two types of cell interaction, that governed by the recognition of antigen MHC by T cell receptors, and that governed by receptor:receptor interactions.