Preparation of T-lymphocyte lines and clones with specificities to preselected protein sites by in vitro passage with free synthetic peptides: demonstration with myoglobin sites.

Recently, this laboratory has demonstrated that antibodies to preselected regions of a protein can be obtained by immunization with free small synthetic peptides (6-7 residues) without conjugation to a carrier. In the present work, we report the use of free synthetic peptides representing myoglobin (Mb) antigenic sites to prepare T-cell lines and clones of preselected specificities. Lymph node cells from mice primed in vivo with sperm-whale Mb were periodically passaged in vitro with synthetic peptide. After several passages, the peptide-driven long term T-cell cultures responded to the intact protein and exclusively to the peptide that was used to drive the cells. From these cultures, T-cell clones were prepared that responded only to the driving peptide and to the whole protein. The ability to prepare T-cell lines and T-cell clones with preselected submolecular specificities to a protein by driving cultures with desired synthetic peptides affords an important and simple tool for basic immunological investigations and for clinical applications.