Cross-reactive recognition of mouse cells expressing the bm3 and bm11 mutations within H-2Kb by H-2Kb-restricted herpes simplex virus-specific cytotoxic T lymphocytes.

Cytotoxic T lymphocytes, generated in C57BL/6 mice in response to herpes simplex virus type 1 (HSV) and known to be restricted in their recognition of HSV-encoded antigen(s) in association with the class I H-2Kb gene product, were consistently found to contain a subpopulation that recognized and lysed uninfected, SV40-transformed cells that expressed the H-2Kbm3 and H-2Kbm11 mutant class I gene products on their cell surface. The mutant cell lines, designated Lgbm3SV and Kbm11SV, share a common amino acid substitution at position 77, with the bm3 mutation having an additional amino acid substitution at position 89. Cross-reactive lysis was observed only after in vivo priming with HSV, suggesting an important role for an antigen-dependent driving step in the expansion of these cross-reactive CTL. The phenotype of the cross-reactive effector population was further confirmed as a T lymphocyte by negative-selection techniques. Limiting dilution analysis of the frequency of cross-reactive CTL precursors suggested that cross-reactivity was mediated by a subpopulation of HSV-specific CTL, and this was confirmed by clonal analysis of the reactivity patterns of short-term, HSV-specific CTL clones. However, analysis of the specificity of the cross-reactive CTL population by cold-target inhibition of bulk culture-derived CTL, or by Spearman ranking analysis of limiting dilution-derived CTL, indicated that the specificity of the cross-reactive population for HSV-infected H-2b target cells and for uninfected bm3 or bm11 target cells was quite distinct. These findings suggested that the cross-reactive CTL population played little, if any, role in the HSV-specific CTL response as measured in vitro. The findings also suggested that the HSV-specific CTL clones able to mediate cross-reactive recognition of the bm3 and bm11 targets had a higher intrinsic avidity for the foreign target than for the inducing antigen.