Alloantigen bound to agarose beads and syngeneic carrier cells are capable of stimulating mouse cytolytic T lymphocytes in vitro.

Bead-bound antigen was prepared by coupling alloantigen covalently to agarose beads. Alloantigen-bearing syngeneic carrier cells were prepared by dilution of detergent solubilized alloantigen in the presence of syngeneic spleen cells. Both types of antigen were compared to spleen cells and reconstituted membrane fragments for the ability to stimulate cytolytic thymus-dependent lymphocytes in vitro. All these types of antigen could stimulate immune but not nonimmune spleen cells to form cytolytic T lymphocytes. The amount of lytic activity obtained with the bead-bound antigen was found to be only dependent upon the amount of H-2 antigen present in the culture and independent of the number of beads.