[Narrow specificity of T-suppressor receptors immune to H-2 complex antigens].

Specific d anti-b and b anti-a suppressor T cells induced by intravenous injection of mice with gamma-irradiated allogenic lymphoid cells, are not a homogenous population of cells as shown by their selective absorption on macrophage monolayers of various H-2 haplotypes. This is proved by separation of suppressor T cells to two subpopulations, at least, each of them being able to react with the products of only one (K or D) end of the H-2 complex. Moreover, the fine specificity study of d anti-b suppressor T cells enriched by elution from macrophage monolayers of different H-2 haplotypes, demonstrated these suppressors to represent a set of narrow-specific clones, each of them carried receptors reactive in a selective fashion with a particular determinant of the H-2 molecule irrespective of this linkage with other products of the H-2 complex. Two such clones reactive with H-2a and H-2f third-party antigens, respectively, were isolated by elution from the corresponding cell monolayers, each of them accounted for about 1.5% of the total d anti-b suppressor population. These data are discussed in the light of differences of suppressor T cells from other T cell subclasses and their resemblance to B cells with respect to the clonal structure and the receptor specificity.