Studies on T lymphocyte activation. I. Requirements for the mitogen-dependent production of T cell growth factors.

Conditioned media (CM) obtained from concanavalin A (Con A)-stimulated spleen cell cultures maintain mitogen-derived T cell blasts in exponential growth for indefinite periods of time. Such purified T cell blasts do not respond to Con A, and the growth-promoting activity in CM is independent of the mitogenic lectin used for its production. However, the appearance of activity in CM is Con A dose-dependent. Furthermore, the production of these T cell growth factors is independent of B cells, while it requires both T cells and nontheta-bearing, probably Ia-positive cells present in normal and nude spleens. On the other hand, the T cell blasts which are reactive to the growth factors, neither produce CM by themselves nor can they cooperate with nude spleen cells for its production, in the presence of a mitogenic lectin. Since the concentration of growth factors in CM determines the extent of T cell growth, we propose that the growth of some T cells is necessarily dependent upon the activity in CM described here and, consequently, that the basis for T cell activation is the induction of such growth factors.