Arps V, Sudowe S, Kölsch E
Institute for Immunology, University of Münster, Germany.
Eur J Immunol. 1998 Feb;28(2):681-6. doi: 10.1002/(SICI)1521-4141(199802)28:02<681::AID-IMMU681>3.0.CO;2-A.
The quality of the humoral immune response against protein antigens in CBA/J mice is dependent on the antigen dose used for immunization: low doses induce high titers of IgE antibodies, whereas high doses promote the production of IgG2a antibodies but inhibit IgE formation. To investigate whether the reciprocal regulation of antibody production is possibly due to a differential activation of Th1 and Th2 cell populations in the two immunization groups, the cytokine pattern of spleen cells from both groups, cultured with antigen in vitro, was analyzed by measurement of intracellular and secreted cytokine levels. The data presented show that in vitro restimulated spleen cells from mice primed with low as well as with high doses of antigen produce predominantly the Th2 cytokines IL-4 and IL-10 but reduced levels of IL-12. The release of IFN-gamma is only slightly enhanced compared to unstimulated control cultures. The results indicate that CD4+ T cells in both groups belong mainly to the Th2 cell subset. This finding is contradictory to the general allegation that the antigen dose is decisive for the polarization of Th1 versus Th2 immune responses and shows that the antigen dose-dependent regulation of IgE antibody production is not due to differential polarization towards Th1 and Th2 cells.
CBA/J小鼠针对蛋白质抗原的体液免疫反应质量取决于用于免疫的抗原剂量：低剂量诱导高滴度的IgE抗体，而高剂量促进IgG2a抗体的产生但抑制IgE形成。为了研究抗体产生的相互调节是否可能是由于两个免疫组中Th1和Th2细胞群体的差异激活，通过测量细胞内和分泌的细胞因子水平，分析了两组在体外与抗原一起培养的脾细胞的细胞因子模式。所呈现的数据表明，用低剂量和高剂量抗原致敏的小鼠的体外再刺激脾细胞主要产生Th2细胞因子IL-4和IL-10，但IL-12水平降低。与未刺激的对照培养物相比，IFN-γ的释放仅略有增强。结果表明，两组中的CD4+ T细胞主要属于Th2细胞亚群。这一发现与普遍认为抗原剂量对Th1与Th2免疫反应极化起决定性作用的观点相矛盾，并表明IgE抗体产生的抗原剂量依赖性调节不是由于向Th1和Th2细胞的差异极化。
