T cells specific to haptencarrier but not to carrier alone assist in the production of anti-hapten and anti-carrier antibodies

Author： Shimizu Takeyuki Osaka Yuko Banri-Koike Chihiro Yoshida Maiko Endo Kanako Furukawa Koji Oda Masayuki Murakami Akikazu Ogawa Shuhei Abe Ryo Azuma Takachika

Publisher： Oxford University Press

ISSN： 1460-2377

Source： International Immunology, Vol.19, Iss.10, 2007-10, pp. : 1157-1164

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Abstract

We examined the immune response of Balb/c mice to antigens prepared by conjugating 2-phenyloxazolone (phOx) to a foreign protein, ovalbumin (OVA), or a self-protein, mouse serum albumin (MSA), in order to study how these chemical modifications would affect immune recognition. We found that anti-OVA antibodies and CD4 T cells produced by OVA immunization reacted with OVA as well as with phOxOVA. Anti-phOx antibodies were produced by phOxOVA immunization and, interestingly, T cells from these mice reacted only with phOxOVA but not with the intact OVA. These results suggested that the classical model of haptencarrier immunization, in which B cells specific to hapten are activated with assistance from T cells specific to a carrier protein, might not be a major route for production of anti-hapten antibodies in haptencarrier immunization. Furthermore, phOxMSA immunization induced production of anti-phOx antibodies, which could not be accounted for in terms of the assistance of carrier-specific T cells because of the absence of MSA-specific T cells. Therefore, we proposed a new model in which anti-hapten B cells are assisted by T cells specific to the haptenated carrier.