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In Vitro Stimulation of Human Lymphocytes with Heterologous Anti-Lymphocyte Sera: Evidence for a Specific Antigenic Receptor Mechanism¹

From The Department of Immunology, Research Institute, The Hospital For Sick Children, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

Abstract

Heterologous antiserum prepared against human lymphocytes (ALS)² has been shown to stimulate lymphocyte proliferation in vitro, as measured by ³H-thymidine incorporation into DNA (1). This reaction is assumed to follow binding of the ALS to the lymphocyte plasma membrane, an event which triggers cell division (2). We have observed that ALS prepared against human thymus or thymus-derived (T) lymphocytes stimulated proliferation of lymphocytes in vitro, whereas ALS prepared against human cultured lymphoid cell lines which originated from bone marrow-derived (B) lymphocytes did not or did so poorly in spite of the fact that both ALS bound equally well to lymphocyte plasma membranes. This observation suggests that binding of ALS to lymphocytes per se is not a sufficient stimulus to induce proliferation.

Footnotes

¹ This work was supported by the Medical Research Council of Canada.

² ALS, anti-lymphocyte serum; T, thymus derived; B, bone marrow derived; ALS(THY), ALS from human thymuses; ALS(PBL), ALS from peripheral blood lymphocytes; ALS(CHL), ALS from cultured lymphoid cell lines; PBL, peripheral blood lymphocytes; TLN, tonsil lymphocytes.