Antibody response induced in vitro to the cell-surface alloantigen Thy–1

Abstract

MANY important antibody responses are provoked by antigens on the surfaces of nucleated cells and, in spite of wide interest, little is known of the immunobiology of these responses. Alloantigens comprise an intriguing class of surface antigens because they may stimulate antibody production by B cells as well as target-cell killing by T cells and also because alloantigens are themselves intimately involved in the immunological recognition of other cellular antigens, such as viral antigens¹, autoantigens², surface-bound haptens³, other allo-antigens⁴ and tumour-associated antigens⁵. Studies of antibody responses in vitro, involving potent xenoantigens, have contributed greatly to the understanding of cellular and molecular interactions in immunity⁶. This has suggested the potential of such systems for the study of responses to weaker antigens of nucleated cells. In this report I define such an experimental approach with the induction in vitro of primary and secondary responses to the murine alloantigen Thy–1 as measured with a modified plaque-forming cell (PFC) assay, developed from the method of Fuji et al.⁷.