title: Antigen-specific B and T cells in human/mouse radiation chimera following immunization in vivo.
abstract: Adoptive transfer of human peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC) into mice with severe combined immunodeficiency (SCID) or into lethally irradiated BALB/c mice radioprotected with SCID bone marrow, leads to marked engraftment of human T and B cells. In such chimeras, human serum antibody responses can be stimulated readily by vaccination with recall antigens, but the detection of antigen-specific functional T or B cells has been extremely difficult. In the present study, we were able to detect by Elispot analysis high frequencies of immunoglobulin G (IgG)-secreting B cells and mitogen-responsive interferon-gamma (IFN-gamma) or interleukin-4 (IL-4)-secreting T cells in peritoneum and spleen of human/BALB/c chimeric mice during the first 3 weeks after PBMC transfer. Moreover, specific memory responses were elicited by vaccination with tetanus toxoid (TT) or hepatitis B virus (HBV) surface (HBs) antigen of chimeric mice transplanted with PBMC derived from TT- or HBV-immune donors. Substantially higher TT-specific B-cell frequencies were found during the first 3 weeks after vaccination in mice challenged with the specific antigen compared to the levels found in control animals. High numbers of TT-specific IFN-gamma-secreting T cells persisted in the peritoneum of vaccinated, but not of unvaccinated, animals during the entire observation period, but only low numbers of specific IL-4-secreting T cells were found in vaccinated mice. Similar results were achieved following vaccination with HBs antigen of chimeric mice, transplanted with PBMC of HBV immunized donors. Thus, TT or HBsAg-specific antibody responses in our model correlate closely with the existence of specific IFN-gamma-secreting T helper 1/0 cells. Furthermore, these results show that adoptive transfer of human PBMC into lethally irradiated mice provides an efficient approach to generate specific B-cell fusion partners for the production of human monoclonal antibodies and specific T-cell lines for adoptive cell therapy of malignant or infectious diseases.
authors.affiliation: Department of Immunology, The Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel.
authors.forename: W O
authors.initials: WO
authors.lastname: Böcher
authors.forename: H
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Marcus
authors.forename: R
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Shakarchy
authors.forename: B
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Dekel
authors.forename: D
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Shouval
authors.forename: E
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Galun
authors.forename: Y
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Reisner
mesh_terms: D019264:Adoptive Transfer; D000818:Animals; D001402:B-Lymphocytes / Q000276:immunology*; D016207:Cytokines / Q000378:metabolism; D004797:Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assay; D000939:Epitopes / Q000276:immunology*; D006514:Hepatitis B Surface Antigens / Q000276:immunology; D006801:Humans; D007114:Immunization; D007074:Immunoglobulin G / Q000378:metabolism; D051379:Mice; D008807:Mice, Inbred BALB C; D016688:Mice, Inbred NOD; D016513:Mice, SCID; D011828:Radiation Chimera / Q000276:immunology*; D013601:T-Lymphocytes / Q000276:immunology*; D013745:Tetanus Toxoid / Q000276:immunology
chemical_list: D016207:Cytokines; D000939:Epitopes; D006514:Hepatitis B Surface Antigens; D007074:Immunoglobulin G; D013745:Tetanus Toxoid