Abstract
Recently, it has been shown that the immunization of mice with an 18 amino acid synthetic peptide corresponding to the third hypervariable region of MHC class II β chain can induce a specific antibody response against MHC class II molecules, and can be utilized in the prevention and treatment of experimental allergic encephalomyelitis (EAE) [ Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. 1994, 91, 8005–8009] 1. Based on this finding, a chemically-modified synthetic peptide with the amino acid sequence corresponding to residues of β 57–76 from human HLA-DR4Dw4 ( DR4 1 peptide) is being clinically investigated for the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis in human. The present study describes the development of a novel in vitro potency assay for human HLA-DR4 1 peptide using cloned murine T-T hybridoma cells. Several mouse strains were immunized with the DR4 1 peptide and their lymph node T cell proliferation was measured in the presence of syngeneic APCs and the DR4 1 peptide. T cells isolated from the peptide primed-B10.PL mouse strain, which showed the highest recall response in this assay, were fused with BW5147 lymphoma cells to generate DR4 1 peptide-specific T-T hybridoma clones. Cloned hybridoma cells were characterized for peptide specificity and MHC class II restriction, and used to monitor the biological activity of various DR4 1 peptide preparations. The potency of peptide batches were assessed by measuring the IL-2 secretion of cloned T-T hybridoma cells upon TCR engagement in an antigen-specific manner. The quantitative detection of IL-2 was performed by measuring [ 3H]thymidine incorporation of HT-2 cells or directly by ELISA. These results demonstrate that peptide-specific murine T-T hybridoma clones can be successfully utilized to monitor biological activity of synthetic peptides by measuring T cell-mediated immunological responses. Development of such in vitro potency assay for synthetic peptides may have broad applications for vaccines related to immunological disorders.
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