Monoclonal antibodies raised against engineered soluble mouse T cell receptors and specific for V alpha 8-, V beta 2- or V beta 10-bearing T cells.

We have characterized a panel of monoclonal antibodies (mAb) produced by immunizing rats with two distinct soluble mouse alpha/beta T cell receptor (TcR). Fifty mAb were found to react with the corresponding surface-bound TcR. Such observations suggest that the soluble TcR molecules used as immunogen are folded in a conformation similar to the native structure. Furthermore, the binding to T cells of four antibodies was found to correlate with the expression of the V alpha 8, V beta 2 or V beta 10 gene segments. Finally, staining of T lymphocytes from various mouse strains suggests that (a) the two anti-V alpha 8 antibodies recognize different epitopes, and each on only a fraction of V alpha 8+ cells; (b) the anti-V beta 10 mAb identifies a V beta 10 polymorphism among mouse strains, and (c) T cells expressing the V beta 2 or V beta 10 gene segments are not subject to major clonal deletion events induced by the major histocompatibility complex class II and Mls products which were tested.