Spleen cells from antigen‐minimized mice are superior to spleen cells from germ‐free and conventional mice in the stimulation of primaryin vitroproliferative responses to nominal antigens

摘要

AbstractT lymphocytes from mice reared under conditions of differential exposure to food, environmental and microbial antigens were compared for phenotypic shifts that may be associated with prior exposure to antigens as well as functional variations in the ability to respond to antigensde novo.While the intra‐epithelial CD8 T cell compartment was found to differ significantly in the type of T cell receptor predominantly expressed, CD4 T cells from various lymphoid organs of conventionally reared specific pathogen‐free (CL‐SPF) mice showed only subtle phenotypic differences from cells obtained from antigen‐minimized germ‐free (AF) and germ‐free (GF) mice. Cells derived from mice exposed to a reduced antigen load exhibited primaryin vitroproliferative responses to antigens such as dinitrophenyl‐keyhole limpet hemocyanin which were significantly enhanced when compared with similar responses of cells from conventional mice. In cell mixing experiments, differences in the reactivity of T cells from the spleens of AF, GF and CL‐SPF mice were dependent on the source of the spleen cells employed as antigen‐presenting cells (APC). Experiments in which the T cell population was held constant revealed that, as APC, spleen cells from AF mice were most often superior to spleen cells from GF mice which were in turn considerably better than a similar population from SPF mice. We conclude that the enhanced primary reactivity of spleen cells from AF mice to nominal antigenin vitrois likely to be the result of a difference in the function and/or regulatory activities of the cell population employed as APC in t