Collaboration of histoincompatible T and B lymphocytes using cells from tetraparental bone marrow chimeras

Abstract

T-B collaboration has been studied in a secondary response to sheep erythrocytes using either syngeneic or allogeneic T and B cell combinations. T cells prepared from tetraparental bone marrow chimeras (TBMC), carrying H 2 determinants of one parental strain only, cooperated with syngeneic, as well as with allogeneic B cells carrying the alloantigens to which the T cells had been tolerized in the chimeric environment. When TBMC derived cells of a single H 2 specificity were transferred with a mixture of TBMC derived B cells of both H 2 types of the parental strains, no preference for syngeneic cooperation was found. The data therefore suggest that the presence of differing H 2 complex determinants on the allogeneic T and B cell populations of the two different strain combinations tested do not interfere with T B collaboration when the cell populations studied are mutually tolerant.