The Journal of Immunology, Vol 146, Issue 4 1099-1103, Copyright © 1991 by American Association of Immunologists

ARTICLES

Retroviral transduction of protein kinase C-gamma into cytotoxic T lymphocyte clones leads to immortalization with retention of specific function

OJ Finn, DA Persons, KM Bendt, L Pirami and P Ricciardi
Department of Microbiology and Immunology, Duke University Medical Center, Durham, NC 27710.

The molecular pathways that are responsible for delivering the proliferative signals from the cell surface to the nucleus in T lymphocytes are still unresolved, but recent data implicates protein kinase C (PKC) involvement in the TCR signaling pathway. To further address the role of PKC in T cell activation, the effects of high level expression of the PKC-gamma isoenzyme in murine CTL clones were examined. Unlike the parental cells that required periodic Ag stimulation for cell activation and growth, cells expressing a retrovirally transduced PKC-gamma gene propagated in culture independent of the need for Ag stimulation, although maintaining identical functional specificity to the parental CTL. Constitutive PKC- gamma expression may therefore mimic physiologic PKC activation, thereby abrogating the requirement for TCR-Ag interaction in T cell activation.