Negative allogeneic effects in vitro. I. Allogeneic T cells markedly suppress the secondary antibody-forming cell response.

Murine T cells can mediate a potent negative allogeneic effect on the capacity of primed cells to develop the secondary antibody-forming cell response to hapten carrier in vitro. This effect is detected when T cells confront responding cells differing at the major H-2 locus. The allosuppression is relatively sensitive to mitomycin treatment and to irradiation. The T cells responsible for the inhibition of antibody formation appear to express the Ly2 but not the Ly1 alloantigen. The secondary response of spleen cells in culture is quite insensitive to positive allogeneic effects. The usefulness of this model in elucidating the mechanism of allosuppression and the relevance of such effects to studies involving genetic restriction on cell interactions is discussed.