DOMINANT V-BETA-8 GENE USAGE IN RESPONSE TO TNP - FAILURE TO USE OTHER V-BETA CHAINS FOLLOWING REMOVAL OF V-BETA-8(-CELLS BY MONOCLONAL-ANTIBODY IN-VIVO() T)

This paper investigates the V beta usage of lymph node cells from mice immunized with TNP and of cell lines made from them. In cell lines st imulated weekly with TNP in vitro for I month, about 87% of the cells were V beta 8(+) and further analysis showed that these cells were act ually V beta 8.2(+). This was also true for the cells that proliferate d in lymph nodes in response to TNP 4 days after primary immunization, i.e. proliferation occurred mainly in the V beta 8(+), and in particu lar in the V beta 8.2(+) population while much less proliferation occu rred when the V beta 8(-) or V beta 8.2(-) T-cell populations are used . This was not due to non-specific damage during separation, as the re sponse to concanavalin A and alloantigen was intact. In a separate ser ies of experiments, mice were acutely depleted of V beta 8(+) T cells by treatment with F23.1 or a control monoclonal antibody (mAb) in vivo given before immunization. Treatment with the relevant mAb virtually abolished the response to TNP. In contrast, SJL mice, which lack the g ene segment coding for the vps family and several other V beta chains, made a normal proliferative and delayed-type hypersensitivity (DTH) r esponse to TNP. This poses the problem, which may be important in the study of the T-cell repertoire, of why acute removal of V beta 8(+) T cells, which are dominantly used in the response to TNP, does not allo w T cells using other chains to substitute in the response, while the absence of this population over a long period of time, because of a de letion in the genome, allows the use of T cells bearing other V beta c hains.