Antiself Suppressive (Veto) Activity of Responder Cells in Mixed Lymphocyte Cultures

Abstract

Self-tolerance is a fundamental property of the immune system. Both autoanti- gen-specific suppressor lymphocytes (STL) and anti-idiotype-specific STL have been suggested to be important for the maintenance of self-tolerance (Vento et al. 1984; Takemori and Rajewsky 1984). Self-tolerance has also been claimed to be maintained by a number of different lymphocyte populations mainly within the T-cell lineage. Both in vitro and in vivo, these suppressor cells downregulate cytotoxic lymphocyte precursors with reactivity against the H-2 haplotype of the suppressor cell. Suppressor cells with such antiself suppressor activity have been named veto cells (Miller 1980; Muraoka and Miller 1980). Veto cell function appears to be the property of both T lymphocytes and other lymphoid cells at many levels of cell differentiation (Miller 1980; Muraoka and Miller 1980, 1984; Rammensee et al. 1982). Recently, strong veto activity was shown to be present in allospecific cloned cytotoxic T-cell lines (Fink et al. 1984a; Claesson and Miller 1984). In this study we shall show that the responder cell population of a one-way allogeneic and of an autologous mixed lymphocyte culture (MLC) exhibits strong veto activity. We also present preliminary data showing that cells.