Lymphocyte-mediated cytotoxicity against tumor cells specificity and characterization of concanavalin A-activated cytotoxic effector lymphocytes.

The selective T cell mitogen Con A was found to induce cytotoxic effectorlymphocytes after in vivo or in vitro treatment. The effector cells exhibited immunologic specificity when tested against tumor cells, killing targets only across H-2 histocompatibility barriers. Thus, Con A caused a polyclonal T cell activation, resulting in the appearance of effector cells capable of recognizing all H-2 antigens, except those coded for by the major histocompatibility loci of the lymphocyte donor. These experiments demonstrate that Con A is capable of activating pre-existing T cells to reveal their genetically determined immunological specificity, and furthermore suggest that there is a deletion of T cell clones with specificity for self. The activated effector cells were characterized as T blasts being relatively insensitive to treatment with anti-O serum plus complement. The precursors of the Con A-activated effector cells were shown to reside primarily in the spleen, to be radio-resistant up to 400 R, and to be short-lived after adult thymectomy. Thus, the population of T cells capable of activation to cytotoxic effector lymphocytes by Con A has similar physical characteristics to the splenic subset(s) of T cells mediating both GVH and cytotoxicity responses upon alloimmunization.