Direct cloning and extended culture of antigen-specific MHC-restricted, proliferating T lymphocytes.

The development of antigen-specific, T-cell lines has been a subject of intensive investigation by many laboratories interested in the problems of the nature of the T-cell receptor and the mechanism of major histocompatibility complex (MHC) restriction. We describe here a modification of the soft agar cloning technique which has allowed us to rapidly generate and expand proliferating T-lymphocyte clones directly from murine lymph nodes. Using this technique, we demonstrate that such T-cell clones are antigen specific and require I--A compatible antigen-presenting cells for stimulation.