Spontaneous cytotoxic T cells in murine spleen-cell cultures. I. Some characteristics of effector and precursor cells.

摘要

Cytotoxic T cells that arise spontaneously in culture (SCTL) have been characterized using a sensitive plaque reduction (PR) assay. Although SCTL effector cells are highly susceptible to anti-Thy-1 antibody plus complement treatment, they are derived from precursor cells having very low levels of Thy-1 antigen. SCTL are barely detectable in cultures of thymus cells, bone marrow cells, and spleen cells from athymic nuu and very old mice. Since SCTL have some similarities to both natural killer cells and normal cytotoxic T cells, SCTL may represent a stage in the T-cell lineage that links these two forms of cytotoxicity.