Saizawa M, Mabuchi A, Yokomuro K, Kimura Y
Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Department of Pathology, Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, CT 06511.
Microbiol Immunol. 1987;31(8):779-92. doi: 10.1111/j.1348-0421.1987.tb03140.x.
We describe the quantitative measurement of antigen-specific clusters formed by antigen-pulsed macrophages and immunized T cells in mice. We have found the peripheral blood T cells show very little non-specific adhesion to macrophages in mice. By using this population of lymphocytes in the peripheral blood as the source of immunized T cells, we could quantitate antigen-specific cluster formation. On OVA-pulsed monolayers of peritoneal exudate macrophages from normal BALB/c mice, syngeneic peripheral blood T cells from donors immunized with the same antigen develop 20-40 clusters per 1,000 macrophages, whereas the same T cells on non-pulsed monolayers develop only 0-5 cluster-like accumulations of cells. On antigen-pulsed monolayers of macrophages from allogeneic (C57BL/6 or A/J) mice, clusters are developed only in the negative range (0-5/1,000 macrophages). Considering the observation by Braendstrup et al, these data seem to suggest that histocompatibility between macrophages and T cells is required to develop antigen-specific T cell clusters on antigen-pulsed macrophage monolayers, and that the genetic restriction of immune responsiveness may be directly expressed in this initial form of cellular interaction between antigen-bearing macrophages and specific T cells.
