Prevention of autoimmune type I diabetes in biobreeding (BB) rats by a newly established, autoreactive T cell line from acutely diabetic BB rats.

An autoreactive T cell line, BNY-2, was established from lymphocytes isolated from the islets of acutely diabetic BioBreeding (BB) rats after continuous stimulation of the isolated lymphocytes by irradiated lymph node cells. Flow cytometric analysis showed that BNY-2 cells were positive for CD4 and CD5 and were negative for CD8 and RT6, indicating that these cells were phenotypically Th cells rather than cytotoxic T cells. mAbs against rat MHC class II Ags (anti-RT1.D) blocked the proliferation response of BNY-2 cells, suggesting that these cells recognize the MHC class II Du molecule. When splenic T lymphocytes from diabetes-prone BB rats were stimulated by Con A in the presence of irradiated BNY-2 cells or irradiated lymph node cells, the BNY-2 cells had a significant suppressive effect on splenic T cell proliferation, whereas lymph node cells had no effect. When we injected diabetes-prone BB rats i.v. at 30 and 60 days of age with activated BNY-2 cells, the incidence of diabetes was significantly reduced compared with that seen in saline-injected control rats (diabetic incidences were 12 and 80%, respectively). On the basis of these observations, we conclude that autoreactive BNY-2 T cells, established from the pancreatic islets of acutely diabetic BB rats, can prevent the development of autoimmune diabetes in the diabetes-prone BB rat by an immunosuppressive effect.