Antigen-primed T cells from B cell-deficient JHD mice fail to provide B cell help.

B cells are effective in presenting Ag to primed T cells, but a specific role for B cells in priming naive T cells has not been clearly established. In this report we demonstrate that Ag administration to B cell-deficient JHD mice primes T cells for Ag-specific proliferative responses, but such primed T cells fail to provide help for isotype switching and IgG production in B cells. Although T cells primed in the absence of B cells could proliferate in response to Ag presented by B cells and could induce Ag-specific IgM production, such T cells failed to produce high levels of IL-4 as are normally induced in T cells by Ag-presenting B cells. These findings suggest that while B cells are not absolutely required for T cell priming, they provide signals to T cells that are not replicated by other APCs and that influence the subsequent ability of T cells to interact with B cells.