Comparison of the T cell receptors on insulin-specific hybridomas from insulin transgenic and nontransgenic mice. Loss of a subpopulation of self-reactive clones.

Transgenic mice expressing the human insulin gene do not produce insulin-specific antibody after injection of human insulin. Nevertheless, they have some peripheral T cells that proliferate to human insulin in vitro. To investigate the nature of these T cells, human insulin-specific T cell hybridomas were produced from transgenic and nontransgenic mice. Transgenic hybridomas required more insulin to achieve maximum responses and they produced lower levels of lymphokines than nontransgenic hybridomas. The majority of nontransgenic hybridomas recognized only human and pork insulin whereas transgenic hybridomas recognized beef, sheep, and/or horse insulin in addition to human and pork insulin. The TCR expressed by transgenic and nontransgenic hybridomas were determined by Northern analysis. Both types of hybridomas used several different V alpha and V beta gene families and no favored association between V alpha and V beta gene usage was detected in either type. V beta 1 was used by 7 of 16 nontransgenic hybridomas but only by 1 of 16 transgenic hybridomas. V beta 6 receptors were predominantly expressed by the transgenic hybridomas and all V beta 6-bearing hybridomas recognized beef as well as human insulin. The differences in Ag reactivity and TCR gene usage suggest that V beta 1-bearing human insulin-reactive T cells were clonally deleted or inactivated in the transgenic animal. Other clones, representing a minor subpopulation in nontransgenic mice, were recovered from transgenic mice.