Abstract
Purified rabbit antibodies to mouse κ chain or Fab become strongly mitogenic for mouse splenic B lymphocytes when covalently attached to the surface of polyacrylamide beads. The same antibody preparations are weakly if at all mitogenic in soluble form. The proliferative response to these anti-Ig beads is not dependent on T lymphocytes, adherent cells, serum supplement, or Fc receptor interactions. The response to anti-Ig beads can be blocked by soluble F(ab′)2 anti-Ig at concentrations that modulate surface Ig, or by excess soluble mouse IgG. Hence, the response results from direct interaction of the beads with B cells via surface Ig.
In the presence of a supernatant of Con A-treated spleen cells (Con A supernatant), B lymphocytes respond to anti-Ig beads by sustained proliferation and differentiation to polyclonal IgM and IgG secretion. The response is comparable in magnitude to the lipopolysaccharide response. Ig secretion is completely dependent on the Con A supernatant, which by itself has only a small, primarily differentiative effect on isolated B lymphocytes. It can be added 22 hr after the start of culture without changing the kinetics of the response; addition at later times up to 66 hr delays the appearance of secreting cells, but not the size of the peak response. Cells from 10-day-old mice and adult male (CBA/N♂ × BALB/c♀) F1 mice fail to respond.
These experiments suggest that redistribution of surface Ig by the anti-Ig beads delivers a limited proliferative signal to a subset of B lymphocytes, but that sustained cell division and differentiation to Ig secretion by anti-Ig activated B lymphocytes require soluble substances produced by activated T lymphocytes and/or T lymphocyte-activated accessory cells.
Footnotes
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↵1 This work was supported by Grant AI 13447 from the National Institutes of Health and aided by Grant IN-129 from the American Cancer Society. The work was begun when D. C. P. was a National Institutes of Health postdoctoral fellow in the Imperial Cancer Research Fund Tumor Immunology Unit at University College, London.
- Received March 27, 1979.
- Accepted May 17, 1979.
- Copyright © 1979 by The American Association of Immunologists, Inc.
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