Modulation of the secondary antibody response of murine lymphocytes to sheep red blood cells in vitro by neuraminidase and exoglycosidases.

The effect of digestion of lymphocytes with neuraminidase and exoglycosidases on the secondary antibody response in vitro to sheep red blood cell (SRBC) antigen was tested. Treatment of spleen cells from SRBC-primed mice with 3 micrograms/ml of neuraminidase slightly but significantly augmented their plaque-forming cell response to SRBC, whereas treatment with 100 micrograms/ml of a mixture of exoglycosidases did not. Rather unexpectedly, however, treatment of the spleen cells with the mixture of both neuraminidase and exoglycosidases greatly augmented the response. This enzyme action was substrate specific inasmuch it was ablated by addition of mucin as a neuraminidase inhibitor to the enzyme mixture. The target of the enzyme activity was not glass-adherent macrophages, but was glass-non-adherent suppressor cells in the antigen-primed cell population. Evidence was provided that the phenotype of suppressor cells whose activity was ablated by the enzyme treatment was Thy-1+. It is suggested from these results that sialylated complex type oligosaccharides on antigen-primed T cells play a critical role in their suppressor activity.