Antigen as a positive and negative regulator of proliferation in cytotoxic lymphocytes. A model for the differential regulation of proliferation and lytic activity.

The goal of these experiments has been to capitalize on the functionally distinct responses of heteroclitic CTL to cross-reactive Ag to explore the role of Ag in regulating CTL proliferation and lytic function. The experiments here have examined one of these clones in detail but several such clones appear similar. The principal findings were: 1) proliferation and lysis may be optimally stimulated by quantitatively different interactions, 2) Ag can have negative as well as positive effects on the proliferative potential of the responding cell, and 3) both positive and negative effects on lysis can be mimicked by agents which are similar to the second messengers produced by stimulating the TCR.