Cell Interactions in Antibody Formation in Vitro

[摘要] The plaque-forming cell response in vitro of normal mouse spleen cells to sheep erythrocytes requires “adherent” and “nonadherent” cells. Adherent cells incubated only briefly with the antigen and then washed thoroughly with medium stimulate a full response of nonadherent cells which have not been exposed to antigen and are added to the adherent cells. Adherent cells after exposure to antigen and washing with medium were treated briefly with 0.83% NH4Cl and washed again. Such treatment abolished the response of nonadherent cells added to them. The treatment does not injure adherent cells, since their capacity to stimulate a normal response is fully restored by re-adding antigen to them. This requirement for both adherent cells and antigen is demonstrable for the first 2 days of culture of whole spleen cells, but is not demonstrable for so long when cultures are prepared from spleens of mice previously immunized with sheep erythrocytes. Previous studies demonstrated that a subpopulation, present in the adherent population is required, and we refer to this subpopulation as the third cell type. Nonadherent cells contain both bone marrow and thymus-derived cells required for the response to sheep erythrocytes. We suggest that the third cell type may focus the interaction of the other two cell types, presumably through antigen bound on the membranes of its cell surface.

[学科分类] 生物科学（综合）