Update on Aire and thymic negative selection

Abstract

Twenty years ago, the autoimmune regulator (Aire) gene was associated with autoimmune polyendocrinopathy–candidiasis–ectodermal dystrophy, and was cloned and sequenced. Its importance goes beyond its abstract link with human autoimmune disease. Aire identification opened new perspectives to better understand the molecular basis of central tolerance and self–non-self distinction, the main properties of the immune system. Since 1997, a growing number of immunologists and molecular geneticists have made important discoveries about the function of Aire, which is essentially a pleiotropic gene. Aire is one of the functional markers in medullary thymic epithelial cells (mTECs), controlling their differentiation and expression of peripheral tissue antigens (PTAs), mTEC–thymocyte adhesion and the expression of microRNAs, among other functions. With Aire, the immunological tolerance became even more apparent from the molecular genetics point of view. Currently, mTECs represent the most unusual cells because they express almost the entire functional genome but still maintain their identity. Due to the enormous diversity of PTAs, this uncommon gene expression pattern was termed promiscuous gene expression, the interpretation of which is essentially immunological – i.e. it is related to self-representation in the thymus. Therefore, this knowledge is strongly linked to the negative selection of autoreactive thymocytes. In this update, we focus on the most relevant results of Aire as a transcriptional and post-transcriptional controller of PTAs in mTECs, its mechanism of action, and its influence on the negative selection of autoreactive thymocytes as the bases of the induction of central tolerance and prevention of autoimmune diseases.