A human suppressor T cell clone which recognizes an autologous helper T cell clone

Abstract

In contrast to the many reports of IL-2 dependent proliferating, helper or killer cell clones¹, there is only a single report of an IL-2 dependent suppressor cell clone², in the mouse. However by the same cloning procedures used to generate human helper cells³, suppressor cell clones to influenza virus could not be generated, and so another strategy was used. Jerne's network hypothesis⁴ proposes that immune regulation results from lymphoid cell receptors recognizing determinants on other lymphoid cell receptors. If this is the case it should be possible to generate regulatory T cell clones against other T cells and we report here the generation of an autologous suppressor cell clone which recognizes and inhibits the function of a human helper T cell clone. Such an autologous suppressor cell clone provides a new approach to understanding the pathways and molecular events involved in immune regulation. Mutual stimulation of the suppressor cell clone and the target helper cell clone in the absence of back stimulation, provides direct experimental evidence for the existence of interactions between T cell receptors, and thus suggests that the specificity of the suppressor cell clone is for the antigen receptor of the helper cell.