Human T lymphocytes and T-cell lines as target cells for lymphocyte chemotaxis.

We have observed that freshly isolated T lymphocytes from healthy donors give a chemotactic response to complement C5a in 26 of 55 individuals and to epidermal lymphocyte chemotactic factor in 15 of 23 donors using 51chromium-labelled lymphocytes in a double-filter Boyden chamber system. The reason for a lack of demonstrable chemotaxis among some cell populations is unknown, but it makes donor selection important when studying lymphocyte chemotaxis. In order to obtain a standardized screening assay for T lymphocyte chemotactic activity, we investigated a number of T-cell lines or T-cell-related cell lines such as HuT78, Jurkat, MOLT4, K562 and 1301. We observed that HuT78, K562 and Jurkat showed chemotactic responses to a variety of mediators, whereas 1301 showed chemotaxis only towards C5a, and MOLT4 was completely negative. The HuT78 cell line, which is derived from a patient with Sézary's syndrome, exhibited the highest chemotactic capacity similar to freshly isolated T lymphocytes. The only difference was its chemotactic response towards stimulation with recombinant interleukin-1 alpha and beta, which did not induce chemotaxis in human peripheral blood T lymphocytes in the Boyden chamber assay. We conclude that HuT78 can be used in screening various inflammatory mediators for their potential T lymphocyte chemotactic properties.