Proteins synthesized by inducer T cells: evidence for a mitogenic peptide shared by inducer molecules that stimulate different cell types.

Inducer T lymphocytes synthesize and secrete peptides that stimulate growth and differentiation of many cell types, including lymphocytes and monocytes that kill foreign organisms, B lymphocytes, mast cells and hematopoietic precursor cells. To define these inducer molecules more precisely, we have generated clones of these T cells as a source of homogeneous material for biochemical analysis. These clones synthesize peptides that stimulate T and B cells to divide and that also induce the latter cells to secrete immunoglobulin. Inducer cells synthesize a 14 kilodalton growth polypeptide that stimulates T and B lymphocytes, as well as other cell types, to divide. This 14 kilodalton peptide is normally associated with different, larger peptides that appear to focus its mitogenic activity to one or another target cell.