In immunology, anergy characterizes the absence of a response from the body's defense mechanisms when confronted with foreign substances. This phenomenon involves the direct induction of peripheral lymphocyte tolerance. When an individual is in a state of anergy, it signifies that their immune system is incapable of mounting a typical response against a specific antigen, typically a self-antigen. The term anergy specifically refers to lymphocytes that exhibit an inability to react to their designated antigen. Notably, anergy constitutes one of the essential processes fostering tolerance within the immune system, alongside clonal deletion and immunoregulation. These processes collectively act to modify the immune response, preventing the inadvertent self-destruction that could result from an overactive immune system.
Mechanism
This phenomenon was first described in B lymphocytes by Gustav Nossal and termed "clonal anergy." The clones of B lymphocytes in this case can still be found alive in the circulation, but are ineffective at mounting immune responses. Later Ronald Schwartz and Marc Jenkins described a similar process operating in the T lymphocyte. Many viruses (HIV being the most extreme example) seem to exploit the immune system's use of tolerance induction to evade the immune system, though the suppression of specific antigens is done by fewer pathogens (notably Mycobacterium leprae).
At the cellular level, "anergy" is the inability of an immune cell to mount a complete response against its target. In the immune system, circulating cells called lymphocytes form a primary army that defends the body against pathogenic viruses, bacteria and parasites. There are two major kinds of lymphocytes – the T lymphocyte and the B lymphocyte. Among the millions of lymphocytes in the human body, only a few actually are specific for any particular infectious agent. At the time of infection, these few cells must be recruited and allowed to multiply rapidly. This process – called "clonal expansion" – allows the body to quickly mobilise an army of clones, as and when required. Such immune response is anticipatory and its specificity is assured by pre-existing clones of lymphocytes, which expand in response to specific antigen (process called "clonal selection"). This specific clonal army then combats the pathogen until the body is free of the infection. Following clearance of the infection, the clones that are no longer needed die away naturally.
However, a small number of the body's army of lymphocytes are able to react with proteins that are normally present in a healthy body. The clonal expansion of those cells can lead to autoimmune diseases, wherein the body attacks itself. In order to prevent this process, lymphocytes possess an intrinsic quality-control mechanism. This machinery shuts down the lymphocytes' ability to expand, if the trigger for the expansion turns out to be the body's own protein. T-cell anergy can arise when the T-cell does not receive appropriate co-stimulation in the presence of specific antigen recognition. a critical event in T cell activation. Under such conditions, the calcium-dependent phosphatase calcineurin acts on the transcription factor NFAT, facilitating its translocation to the nucleus, where it regulates gene expression.
Expanding upon this complexity, during full T-cell stimulation the co-stimulatory receptor CD28 activates PI3K and other pathways, augmenting the nuclear levels of key transcription factors such as rel, NF-κB and AP-1 beyond those induced by TCR activation alone. associated with T-cell productive responses, including IL-2 and its receptor.
NFAT homodimers play a direct role in the expression of anergy-associated genes, such as the ubiquitin ligase GRAIL and the protease caspase 3. It might also be used for immunotherapeutic treatment of allergies.
Dominant tolerance
Dominant and recessive tolerance are forms of a peripheral tolerance (the other tolerance beside peripheral is a central tolerance). Where so called recessive tolerance is associated with anergized lymphocytes as described above, in the dominant form of tolerance, specialized T-reg cells which actively ablate the immune response are developed from the naive T lymphocyte. Similarly to recessive tolerance, unopposed NFAT signalling is also important for
T-reg induction. In this case, the NFAT pathway activates another transcription factor – FOXP3 that is a marker of T-regs and participates in their genetic program.
Testing
The "Multitest Mérieux" or "CMI Multitest" system (Multitest IMC, Istituto Merieux Italia, Rome, Italy) has been used as a general test of the level of cellular immunity. It is an intradermal test of skin reactivity (similar to tuberculin tests) in which a control (glycerol) is used with seven antigens of bacterial or fungal origin (tetanus toxoid, tuberculin, diphtheria, streptococcus, candida, trichophyton, and proteus). In this test reactions are categorized according to the number of antigens provoking a response and the summed extent of the skin response to all seven antigens. Here anergy is defined as a region of skin reactivity of 0–1 mm, hypoergy as a reaction of 2–9 mm in response to fewer than three antigens, normergic as a reaction of 10–39 mm or to three or more antigens, and hyperergy for a reaction of 40 mm or more.
Experimental approaches to study anergy
Various chemicals inducing/inhibiting described T cell signalling pathways can be used to study the anergy. The anergy in T cells can be induced by Ionomycin, the ionophore capable of raising intracellular concentration of calcium ions artificially.
Conversely, Ca<sup>+II</sup> chelators such as EGTA can sequester calcium ions making them unable to cause the anergy. Blocking of the pathway leading to the anergy can be also done by cyclosporin A, which is capable of inhibiting calcineurin – the phosphatase responsible for dephosphorylating of NFAT priming its activation.
PMA, phorbol 12-myristate 13-acetate, along with ionomycin is used to induce full T cells activation by mimicking signals provided naturally by TCR/costimulatory receptors activation.