The Journal of Immunology, Vol 147, Issue 8 2467-2473, Copyright © 1991 by American Association of Immunologists

ARTICLES

Predominant T cell receptor gene elements in TNP-specific cytotoxic T cells

B Kempkes, E Palmer, S Martin, A von Bonin, K Eichmann, B Ortmann and HU Weltzien
Max-Planck-Institut fur Immunbiologie, Freiburg, FRG.

H-2b class I-restricted, TNP-specific CTL clones were obtained by limiting dilution cloning of either short term polyclonal CTL lines or spleen cells of TNP-immunized mice directly ex vivo. Sequence analyses of mRNA coding for TCR alpha- and beta-chains of 11 clones derived from CTL lines from individual C57BL/6 mice revealed that all of them expressed unique but clearly nonrandom receptor structures. Five alpha- chains (45%) employed V alpha 10 gene elements, and four of those (36%) were associated with J beta 2.6-expressing beta-chains. The alpha- chains from these four TCR, moreover, contained an acidic amino acid in position 93 of their N or J region-determined sequences. Clones isolated directly from spleen cells carried these types of receptors at lower frequency, 27% V alpha 10 and 19% J beta 2.6, indicating that bulk in vitro cultivation on Ag leads to selection for these particular receptors. However, even in TNP-specific CTL cloned directly ex vivo, V alpha 10 usage was increased about fivefold over that in Ag- independently activated T cells in H-2b mice (4 to 5%). The selection for V alpha 10/J beta 2.6-expressing cells was obtained repeatedly in other TNP-specific CTL lines from C57BL/6 mice but not in FITC-specific CTL from the same strain or in TNP-specific CTL lines from B10.BR (H- 2k) or B10.D2 (H-2d) mice. We conclude from this (a) that the selection for V alpha 10/J beta 2.6+ T cells is driven by the complementarity of these receptors to a combination of TNP and MHC epitopes and (b) that predominant receptor structures reflect the existence of a surprisingly limited number of "T cell-relevant" hapten determinants on the surface of covalently TNP-modified cells.

This article has been cited by other articles:

				S. J. Gagnon, Z. Wang, R. Turner, M. Damirjian, and W. E. Biddison MHC Recognition by Hapten-Specific HLA-A2-Restricted CD8+ CTL J. Immunol., September 1, 2003; 171(5): 2233 - 2241. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

				S. Honda, W. Zhang, A. M. Kalergis, T. P. DiLorenzo, F. Wang, and S. G. Nathenson Hapten Addition to an MHC Class I-Binding Peptide Causes Substantial Adjustments of the TCR Structure of the Responding CD8+ T Cells J. Immunol., October 15, 2001; 167(8): 4276 - 4285. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

				A. Franco, T. Yokoyama, D. Huynh, C. Thomson, S. G. Nathenson, and H. M. Grey Fine Specificity and MHC Restriction of Trinitrophenyl- Specific CTL J. Immunol., March 15, 1999; 162(6): 3388 - 3394. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

				M.-M. Chilvers, P. Wordsworth, A. Stubbs, and X.-M. Gao TCR Usage by Homocysteine-Specific Human CTL J. Immunol., April 15, 1998; 160(8): 3737 - 3742. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]