Epitope expression on primate lymphocyte surface antigens.

The cross-reactivity of peripheral blood mononuclear cells from 28 nonhuman primates was investigated with ten kinds of Leu series of monoclonal antibodies specific to human T-, natural killer/killer-, and B-cells. The chimpanzees possessed all ten epitopes examined but the orangutan lacked Leu4 and Leu7 epitopes and the gibbons lacked Leu4, Leu7, and Leu12 epitopes. In addition to the above epitopes, the Old World monkeys lacked Leu1 and Leu10 epitopes. The Leu3a/Leu2a cell ratios varied from 0 to 1.56 among the 12 macaque species and this enabled classification of these species into three groups. In the New World monkeys, Leu2a epitope was absent, whereas Leu11a epitope was detected in several species and Leu3a epitope was found only in the owl monkeys. The prosimians expressed only HLA-DR epitope.