International Immunology, Vol. 14, No. 1, 23-30,
January 2002
© 2002 Japanese Society for Immunology
How do cultured CD8+ murine T cell clones survive repeated ligation of the TCR?
Center for Cancer Research and Department of Biology, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA
Correspondence to: J. Chen
Many murine T cell clones grow continuously in culture despite weekly ligation of their TCR by antigen. To learn how the cultured cells avoid or minimize antigen-induced cell death (AICD), we compared Fas and tumor necrosis factor (TNF) receptors (TNFR) on several long-term cultured CD8+ T cell clones with those on naive and activated naive cells expressing the same TCR (2C). In contrast to the naive cells, Fas was absent on the cultured clones and the TNFR-II receptor, present initially at high levels on the cultured cells, was rapidly down-modulated in response to TCR ligation and had virtually disappeared by 2 h, when only ~10% of the cloned cells had been induced to express TNF-
. The extent of AICD of the cultured clones in response to cognate peptide–MHC on the presenting cells used for routine stimulation of the cultures was also considerably less than the massive cell death of the clones following exposure to anti-CD3 antibody plate-bound at high density.
Keywords: activation-induced cell death, cytolytic activity Fas, TCR, tumor necrosis factor receptor
1 Present address: Yokohama Research Center, Mitsubishi Chemical Corp., Yokohama, 227–8502, Japan