MONOCLONAL-ANTIBODIES RAISED AGAINST ENGINEERED SOLUBLE MOUSE T-CELL RECEPTORS AND SPECIFIC FOR V-ALPHA-8-BEARING, V-BETA-2-BEARING OR V-BETA-10-BEARING T-CELLS

We have characterized a panel of monoclonal antibodies (mAb) produced by immunizing rats with two distinct soluble mouse alpha/beta T cell receptor (TcR). Fifty mAb were found to react with the corresponding surface-bound TcR. Such observations suggest that the soluble TcR molecules used as immunogen are folded in a conformation similar to the native structure. Furthermore, the binding to T cells of four antibodies was found to correlate with the expression of the V-alpha-8, V-beta-2 or V-beta-10 gene segments. Finally, staining of T lymphocytes from various mouse strains suggests that (a) the two anti-V-alpha-8 antibodies recognize different epitopes, and each on only a fraction of V-alpha-8+ cells; (b) the anti-V-beta-10 mAb identifies a V-beta-10 polymorphism among mouse strains, and (c) T cells expressing the V-beta-2 or V-beta-10 gene segments are not subject to major clonal deletion events induced by the major histocompatibility complex class II and Mls products which were tested.