title: Studies on the role of HLA-DR in macrophage-T cell interactions.
abstract: The purpose of this paper is to illustrate the difficulties we have encountered in attempting to analyse the role of HLA-DR in the antigen-dependent co-operation between macrophages and T cells which leads to a T-cell proliferative response. We have adopted the two most commonly used approaches; attempted inhibition by anti-HLA-DR antisera and study of co-operation between cells of unrelated individuals, and have found both methods unsatisfactory. With the first method we found that anti-HLA antisera could inhibit proliferative responses in a non-specific manner. Both anti-HLA-A, B and anti-HLA-DR antisera could inhibit and this inhibition was largely Fc-dependent. Using pepsin-digested antisera we have no evidence for a unique role for HLA-DR in these proliferative responses. The second method, study of co-operation between cells of unrelated individuals, proved extremely difficult to analyse because of the background allogeneic reaction. Whether cells of two individuals appeared to co-operate to give an antigen-specific response depended on the number of cells used and the calculations applied to the data. However, it was clearly possible to demonstrate co-operation between DR different individuals.
mesh_terms: D000937:Antigen-Antibody Reactions; D002450:Cell Communication; D002478:Cells, Cultured; D000949:Histocompatibility Antigens Class II / Q000276:immunology*; D006650:Histocompatibility Testing; D006801:Humans; D007518:Isoantibodies / Q000276:immunology; D008213:Lymphocyte Activation; D008264:Macrophages / Q000276:immunology*; D013601:T-Lymphocytes / Q000276:immunology*
chemical_list: D000949:Histocompatibility Antigens Class II; D007518:Isoantibodies