Autophagy is required for T cell homeostasis and activation-induced T cell expansion.
Whether autophagy participates in tolerance induction to foreign antigens, including
allografts, is unknown. We tested the role of an essential autophagy protein, Beclin1, in heart
transplant survival in mice. We observed that long-term allograft survival induced by donor-
specific transfusion plus anti-CD154 mAb required homozygous lymphocyte expression of
Beclin1. Following adoptive transfer into allogeneic recipients, autophagy-deficient, Beclin1 …