Activity of concanavalin A-induced suppressor cells in human MLR: differential effects on primary MLR, secondary MLR, and memory cell precursors.

The relative sensitivity of the MLR responses of freshly isolated human lymphocytes to Con A-induced suppressor cells (SC) was compared to that of lymphocytes that had been primed previously in vitro. Fresh and primed cells were suppressed 72 and 17%, respectively, when cultured under similar conditions (p less than 0.0005). Titration of SC indicated that equivalent suppression in the two populations would require greater than a 50-fold excess of SC in the primed cells. Neither preincubation of the primed cells for 24 or 72 hr with the SC before restimulation, addition of fresh autologous cells to the primed cells, nor preincubation of the SC with fresh cells before addition to the primed cells increased suppression of primed cells. SC added at the beginning of a primary MLC were, however, very suppressive for both the primary response (67% suppression) and the subsequent secondary response (81% suppression). These data indicate that although the human primary MLR and the precursor of the memory cell are both sensitive to the suppressors induced by Con A, the memory cell itself possess an intrinsic resistance to such suppressors that is not related to simple kinetic phenomena nor to the loss in vitro of an intermediate regulatory cell. Cell depletion experiments suggest that resistance to nonspecific suppression may occur at the level of the helper cell.