Epstein-Barr virus-transformed lymphoblastoid cell lines as antigen-presenting cells and “Augmenting” cells for human CMV-specific T h clones

Abstract

The ability of Epstein-Barr virus-transformed lymphoblastoid cell lines (LCL) to present human cytomegalovirus (HCMV) antigen to a panel of HCMV-specific T helper (T h) clones was evaluated. Among the seven T h clones studied, only one clone (SP-CN/T3-16) proliferated well to HCMV presented by both autologous mononuclear cells (MNC) and LCL, and one clone (SP-CN/T3-9) proliferated significantly better to HCMV presented by autologous LCL than by autologous MNC. The majority of the HCMV-specific T h clones tested (five out of seven) responded much better to HCMV presented by MNC than to HCMV presented by LCL. The mechanism(s) responsible for the inefficiency of LCL to present HCMV to certain clones was studied. Our results suggested that the defect of LCL is not due to insufficient interleukin 1 production, insufficient MHC class II molecule expression, nor an inhibitory mechanism or factor. In this report, we also demonstrate that by adding a minimum amount of LCL along with MNC as antigen-presenting cells (APC), one can restimulate and expand T h clones much more efficiently than by using MNC alone as APC.