Cytotoxic activities of normal cultured human T cells.

Normal human T cells grown in continued cultures in medium containing conditioned medium (CM) from PHA-stimulated lymphocytes were studied for their ability to manifest three known forms of cell-mediated cytotoxicity: lectin-induced cellular cytotoxicity (LICC), natural killer cell (NK) activity, and antibody-dependent cellular cytotoxicity (ADCC). The cultured T cells (CTC) were very effective mediators of LICC, being cytotoxic even at very low attacker-target cell ratios in the presence of different lectins, and against different types of targets. When tested without the addition of lectin, the CTC demonstrated a low degree of spontaneous cytotoxicity. This spontaneous cytotoxicity might not be due to conventional NK cells however, since the CTC failed to show significant numbers of cells with Fc receptors (FcR) for IgG, and had no detectable ADCC activity. CTC could represent a population enriched in polyclonal activated T cells with low spontaneous cytotoxicity against a variety of allogeneic target cells, which is greatly enhanced by the addition of lectins dur ing the 51Cr release assay.