Viral specificity of H-2-restricted T killer cells directed against syngeneic tumors induced by Gross, Friend, or Rauscher leukemia virus.

Cytolytic T lymphocytes (CTL) were generated against murine tumors induced by Gross, Friend, or Rauscher leukemia virus (LV) in syngeneic mixed leukocyte-tumor cell cultures. Analogous to the patterns of specificity observed with antibodies to LV-induced cell surface antigens, CTL could be classified into two major groups of specificity. Tumor cells induced by Friend, Moloney, or Rauscher virus and positive for the FMR antigen were killed by syngeneic CTL immune to any one of these three LV; the same CTL, however, were incapable of killing syngeneic tumor cells induced by Gross LV. The converse was true for Gross LV-specific CTL: these CTL were specific for syngeneic tumor cells expressing the Gross virus-associated cell-surface antigen (GCSA), and not the FMR antigen. The H-2 specificities of the two groups of LV-immune CTL were also compared, because in both cases, CTL were restricted in their killing activity to H-2-identical tumor target cells. When CTL from single strains of mice were generated against syngeneic FMR- or GCSA-positive tumor cells, differences were observed with respect both to the requirement for the expression of compatible H-2K or H-2D specificities, and to the intensity of the CTL response in congenic mice of the H-2b, H-2d, and H-2k haplotypes.