Ehlers S, Smith K A
Department of Medicine, Dartmouth Medical School, Hanover, New Hampshire 03756.
J Exp Med. 1991 Jan 1;173(1):25-36. doi: 10.1084/jem.173.1.25.
A simple in vitro experimental system was devised to reflect the in vivo generation of a T cell anamnestic response so that T cell differentiation could be examined at the level of lymphokine gene expression. Comparison of neonatal and adult T cells revealed that both populations expressed the genes for interleukin 2 (IL-2) and its receptor, but only adult T cells were capable of transcribing mRNAs for IL-3, IL-4, IL-5, IL-6, interferon gamma, and granulocyte/macrophage colony-stimulating factor. However, neonatal T cells could be induced to undergo functional differentiation in vitro, thereby acquiring the capacity to express the lymphokine gene repertoire characteristic for adult T cells. These data suggest that the T cells generated from neonatal blood by a primary stimulation in vitro are functionally indistinguishable from the T cells in adult blood that presumably have undergone primary stimulation in vivo. Therefore, we propose that the term "memory cell" be applied to those T cells that can be identified by their differentiated state of inducible effector-lymphokine gene expression.
设计了一种简单的体外实验系统来反映体内T细胞回忆反应的产生，以便在淋巴因子基因表达水平上研究T细胞分化。对新生和成年T细胞的比较显示，这两个群体都表达白细胞介素2（IL-2）及其受体的基因，但只有成年T细胞能够转录IL-3、IL-4、IL-5、IL-6、干扰素γ和粒细胞/巨噬细胞集落刺激因子的mRNA。然而，新生T细胞可在体外被诱导进行功能分化，从而获得表达成年T细胞特有的淋巴因子基因库的能力。这些数据表明，通过体外初次刺激从新生血液中产生的T细胞在功能上与成年血液中可能在体内经历过初次刺激的T细胞没有区别。因此，我们建议将“记忆细胞”一词应用于那些可通过其诱导性效应淋巴因子基因表达的分化状态来识别的T细胞。
