Present difficulties and future promise of MHC multimers in autoimmune exploration

Class I tetramers have been used to track cytotoxic T cells during bacteria l and viral infections. During the past year, the use of such molecules has revealed important information about the role of CD8(+) T cells in autoimm une diabetes. Furthermore, class II multimers have been produced and succes sfully used to stain autoreactive CD4(+) T cells from patients with rheumat oid arthritis or Borrelia-borgdorferi-induced Lyme arthritis.