Continuous cell lines with specific killer T-cell activity

Abstract

THE establishment of continuous cell lines with effector T-cell activity is an obvious starting point in the isolation and characterisation of the T-cell receptor complex. Although nature provided the plasmacytomas which played a key part in elucidating B-cell immunoglobulin structure, there are no known examples of naturally occurring lymphomas with effector T-cell activity. Initial success with fusions between plasma cells and plasmacytomas encouraged extrapolation of this technique to T cells and thymic lymphomas¹, but few promising results have so far been obtained. We have approached this problem by using the carcinogenic properties of mutagens to transform T lymphocytes responding in mixed lymphocyte culture (MLC), with the aim of isolating cell lines with killer T-cell activity. Here we report our success in the first step of isolating continuous, though antigen-dependent, killer T-cell lines.