期刊名称:Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
印刷版ISSN:0027-8424
电子版ISSN:1091-6490
出版年度:1981
卷号:78
期号:9
页码:5821-5825
DOI:10.1073/pnas.78.9.5821
语种:English
出版社:The National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
摘要:Antigen-specific factors associated with immunosuppressive activity, released by cultured T cells from mice tolerant to the haptens trinitrophenyl, dinitrophenyl and oxazolone, were purified by hapten affinity chromatography. Their binding specificity for antigens paralleled their immunoregulatory activity. Like some immunoglobulin molecules, these factors had blocked NH2 termini and could be bound to Fc-like receptors on macrophages. However, neither immunoglobulin constant region determinants (isotypes) nor antigens encoded by the major histocompatibility complex were detected on the suppressive factors. The purified factors occurred as 68,000-dalton proteins and non-covalently linked dimers. No associated immunoglobulin light chain molecules were detected. The factors showed a marked propensity toward degradation with major breakdown products of 45,000-50,000 and 25,000-30,000 daltons. These results suggest that these molecules are the T-cell products analogous to B-cell immunoglobulin (equivalent to heavy chains) and that they may be the antigen-specific components which act in conjunction with major histocompatibility-controlled gene products to perform antigen-specific suppression.