title: Activation of influenza-specific memory cytotoxic T lymphocytes by Concanavalin A stimulation.
abstract: Traditionally, the in vitro activation of virus-specific memory cytotoxic T lymphocytes (CTLs) has been achieved by stimulating the CTLs with antigen-presenting cells (APCs) infected with an appropriate virus or pulsed with virus-specific antigenic peptides. Here, we describe the utilization of the polyclonal activator Concanavalin A (ConA) for in vitro restimulation of memory CTLs from virus-primed mice. Using this simple method, the activation of splenocytes with ConA for 3 days (i) eliminates the need to stimulate with virus-pulsed APCs and (ii) generates CD8+ CTLs that exhibit virus specificity and MHC-restricted lytic activity similar to CTLs obtained by conventional viral restimulation. In vitro ConA stimulation of splenocytes from BALB/c mice primed with the A/Texas/77 or A/Japanese/57 strain of influenza virus and from C57L/J mice infected with the A/Texas strain, generated CTLs with specific lytic activity. Hence reactivation of memory CTLs by this method is a general phenomenon rather than a mouse or viral strain-specific one. The ConA stimulation method used here had a recall of long-term (1 year) memory CTLs that effectively lysed virally infected targets. Further ConA-stimulated effector lymphocytes from virally primed animals have been shown to recognize and subsequently lyse target cells pulsed with virus or virus-derived peptides. The ConA reactivation of specific anti-viral CTLs may facilitate (i) studying anti-viral CTL responses and (ii) identifying of viral epitopes when unknown or when appropriate viral stimulation is impossible.
authors.affiliation: Department of Immunology, The Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel.
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Tsotsiashvilli
authors.forename: R
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Levi
authors.forename: R
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Arnon
authors.forename: G
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Berke
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D002642:Chick Embryo; D003208:Concanavalin A / Q000494:pharmacology*; D007156:Immunologic Memory / Q000187:drug effects / Q000276:immunology; D009980:Influenza A virus / Q000276:immunology*; D008213:Lymphocyte Activation / Q000187:drug effects*; D051379:Mice; D008807:Mice, Inbred BALB C; D008810:Mice, Inbred C57BL; D009976:Orthomyxoviridae Infections / Q000276:immunology; D016176:T-Lymphocyte Subsets / Q000187:drug effects / Q000276:immunology*; D013602:T-Lymphocytes, Cytotoxic / Q000187:drug effects / Q000276:immunology*
chemical_list: D003208:Concanavalin A