Biochemical relationship of thymocyte mitogenic factor and factors enhancing humoral and cell-mediated immune responses.

Supernatants from concanavalin A-induced mouse spleen cells contain soluble factors which: 1) augment the anti-sheep erythrocyte hemolytic plaque-forming cell response of nude mouse spleen cells, 2) facilitate the generation of antigen-specific cytotoxic cells by alloantigen-stimulated thymocytes, and 3) enhance the mitogenic response of thymocytes in the presence or absence of phytohemagglutinin. The uninduced control spleen cell supernatants contained variable but significantly less biologic activity within the difference assay systems. The principle enhancing activity (apparent m.w. 35,000 to 38,000) in each of the assay systems was found to be inseparable after a multiple step purification scheme involving ammonium sulfate precipitation, two-cycle gel filtration, hydroxylapatite chromatography, and hydrophobic chromatography on Phenyl Sepharose. These results indicate that either a single factor (designated thymocyte mitogenic factor) augments both humoral and cell-mediated immune responses or, alternatively, the different biologic activities are mediated by different factors that share a common core structure.