Antibody-dependent cell-mediated cytotoxicity by activated thymocyte populations. Nature of the effector cell(s).

The results of the present experiments have shown that activated thymocyte populations are endowed with a cytotoxic potential against antibody-coated target cells. The effector cells could be divided into at least two subpopulations. 1) host-derived macrophage-like cells and 2) thymocyte-derived donor cell T lymphocytes. These two subpopulations could be separated and identified by means of commonly used immunofractionation techniques. Such data show that effector cells which kill antibody-coated target cells may be of T cell nature.