Detection of antigen-specific T cells with multivalent soluble class II MHC covalent peptide complexes.

Multimeric soluble MHC class II molecules stably occupied with covalently attached peptides bind with appropriate specificity to T cell hybridomas and T cells from T cell receptor transgenic mice. There is a direct correlation between soluble T cell receptor affinity for monomeric MHC/peptide and level of binding of multimeric MHC/peptide to T cells. While binding of the multimeric MHC/peptide complex is proportional to T cell receptor affinity and expression level, there is little influence of T cell CD4.