The response of T cells to soluble protein antigens and fixed antigen-presenting cells.

A polyclonal population of antigen-specific T cells has been used to study the presentation of a soluble protein antigen (ovalbumin) using a B-cell line (A.20) as antigen-presenting cells. We find that glutaraldehyde-fixed antigen-presenting cells will present undegraded antigen to this polyclonal population of T cells. T-cell proliferation is observed only if an exogenous source of T-cell growth factor is added to the cultures. These findings are compared to the results obtained using antigen-specific T-cell clones or T-cell hybridomas and provide further evidence to suggest that degradation of antigen is not essential for the presentation of antigen to T cells.