Constitutive production of interleukin 2 activity by a T cell hybridoma.
Several laboratories have recently confirmed the importance that interleukin 2 (IL-2, formerly referred to as T cell growth factor) plays not only in the maintenance of cultured functional T cell lines but also as a potent regulator of immune responses. Despite the development of preparative IL-2 purification procedures, as well as identification of IL-2 producer tumor cell lines, simple sources of lectin-free IL-2 containing conditioned medium remain undefined. In hopes of establishing such a source of mitogen-free IL-2, we elected to fuse the high titer IL-2 producer tumor cell line, LBRM-33, with a drugmarked T cell lymphoma. In this communication we report the successful isolation of a T cell hybridoma that constitutively synthesizes and secretes biologically active IL-2. Hybridoma conditioned medium contained approximately 10 to 100 times the amount of IL-2 produced by conventional T cell mitogen-stimulated murine splenocyte preparations. In addition to providing a simple means for producing IL-2 containing conditioned medium without the presence of contaminating lectin, we hope that constitutive IL-2 producer hybrid cell lines will prove interesting as vehicles for dissection of the molecular events involved in IL-2 biosynthesis.
D000818:Animals; D002460:Cell Line; D002478:Cells, Cultured; D002999:Clone Cells / Q000276:immunology; D003208:Concanavalin A / Q000494:pharmacology; D006822:Hybrid Cells; D007376:Interleukin-2 / Q000096:biosynthesis / Q000494:pharmacology*; D008222:Lymphokines / Q000494:pharmacology*; D051379:Mice; D008807:Mice, Inbred BALB C; D051381:Rats; D013601:T-Lymphocytes / Q000276:immunology*
D007376:Interleukin-2; D008222:Lymphokines; D003208:Concanavalin A