Human γδ T cells respond to nonpeptide Ags such as pyrophosphomonoesters and alkylamines in a γδ TCR-dependent manner in the absence of other APCs. Recently, aminobisphosphonates such as pamidronate have also been shown to activate human γδ T cells. In the present study, we indicate that activation of primary γδ T cells by pamidronate strictly depends on the presence of monocyte-lineage cells, unlike that by pyrophosphomonoesters. Thus, although pamidronate induced cell clustering, proliferation, and IFN-γ production of γδ T cells in the culture of PBMC, it failed to induce any of these activities in the culture of purified primary γδ T cells. By adding back the purified monocytes, however, both cell clustering and IFN-γ production of γδ T cells by pamidronate could be restored. The pamidronate-pulsed, but not untreated, myelomonocytic line, THP-1, was capable of activating the purified γδ T cells to produce IFN-γ, which was associated with the down-regulation of γδ TCR. Furthermore, pamidronate-pulsed THP-1 cells were significantly more susceptible to γδ T cell-mediated cytotoxicity than untreated THP-1. Also, TCR-defective Jurkat T cells transfected with γδ TCR genes produced a significant level of IL-2 in response to the pamidronate-pulsed THP-1 cells. These results have suggested strongly that human γδ T cells are functionally activated via γδ TCR by aminobisphosphonate Ag presented on the surface of monocyte lineage cells rather than directly by its free form .

Human Vγ2/Vδ2+ γδ T cells respond to low molecular-mass nonpeptide Ags in a γδ TCR-dependent manner. Although requirements of Ag presentation have remained controversial, we have indicated that specific responses of the primary γδ T cells to pamidronate were dependent on monocytic adherent cells for Ag presentation. Here, we show that human tumor cells can efficiently present aminobisphosphonate and pyrophosphomonoester compounds to γδ T cells, inducing specific proliferation and IFN-γ production. γδ TCR dependency of the response to Ag-pulsed tumor cells was confirmed by using a Jurkat line transfected with a Vγ2/Vδ2 γδ TCR. Furthermore, γδ T cells exhibited markedly enhanced cytotoxicity against the Ag-pulsed tumor cells as compared with untreated tumor cells. Survey of a number of human tumor cell lines of different origins revealed that the majority of them became susceptible for γδ T cell-mediated cytotoxicity following the Ag pulsing except for breast cancer lines so far examined, while normal PHA blast cells remained resistant. The results not only imply a unique mode of nonpeptide Ag recognition by human γδ T cells but also may provide a novel strategic clue for immunotherapy of human malignancy.

Human γδ T cells bearing Vγ2Vδ2-TCR recognize various kinds of small nonpeptide Ags, and activation of them by a nitrogen-containing bisphosphonate Ag, pamidronate, requires Ag presentation by cells other than γδ T cells, including many human tumor cells. Present results demonstrated that tumor cell lines of nonhuman origins pulsed with pamidronate failed to activate human γδ T cells without exception, whereas most if not all human tumor cell lines could do so. γδ T cells formed stable conjugates with pamidronate-pulsed human tumor cells and both conjugate formation and γδ T cell activation were inhibited significantly by anti-LFA-1 mAb, suggesting the requirement of LFA-1-mediated interaction with APC for efficient γδ T cell activation. Consistently, ICAM-1low tumor cell lines pulsed with pamidronate induced no or only weak activation of γδ T cells, whereas similarly treated ICAM-1high cell lines could activate them. One of the two ICAM-1low tumor cell lines pulsed with pamidronate induced strong γδ T cell activation after ICAM-1 gene transfer. However, another ICAM-1low human cell line as well as murine tumor cell lines pulsed with pamidronate remained totally defective in γδ T cell activation even after expression of human ICAM-1. These results suggested that activation of human γδ T cells by nonpeptide Ags required species-specific interactions in addition to LFA-1/ICAM-1-mediated cell adhesion with APC.

Human γδ T cells display unique repertoires of Ag specificities largely imposed by selective usages of distinct Vγ and Vδ genes. Among them, Vγ2/Vδ2+ T cells predominate in the circulation of healthy adults and respond to various microbial small molecular mass nonpeptide Ags. The present results indicate that the primary Vγ2/Vδ2+ T cells stimulated with the distinct groups of nonpeptide Ags, including monoethyl pyrophosphate, isobutyl amine, and aminobisphosphonate, invariably exhibit Jγ1.2 in the Vγ2+ TCR-γ chains. Gene transfer studies revealed that most of the randomly cloned Vγ2/Jγ1.2+ TCR-γ genes bearing diverse Vγ/Jγ junctional sequences could confer the responsiveness to all these nonpeptide Ags, while none of the Vγ2/Jγ1.1+ or Vγ2/Jγ1.3+ TCR-γ genes could do so. Furthermore, mutation of the lysine residues encoded by the Jγ1.2 gene, which are unique in human Jγ1.2 and absent in other human or mouse Jγ segments, completely abrogated the responsiveness to all the nonpeptide Ags without affecting the response to anti-CD3 mAb. These results strongly suggested that the positively charged lysine residues in the TCR-γ chain CDR3 region encoded by the germline Jγ1.2 gene play a key role in the recognition of diverse small molecular mass nonpeptide Ags.

The majority of gammadelta T cells in adult human blood exhibit Vgamma2/Vdelta2-TCR and specifically respond to various kinds of non-peptide antigens. In this study, we comparatively analyzed the CDR3 repertoires of Vgamma2-gamma and Vdelta2-delta chain genes in the adult and cord blood. It was confirmed that the vast majority of adult gammadelta T cells exhibited Vgamma2-gamma chains bearing a Jgamma1.2 segment with no or short N-region and Vdelta2-delta chains with a conserved hydrophobic residue (leucine, valine or isoleucine) at position 97 encoded by N-region of Vdelta/Jdelta junction (deltaL97). The cord blood cells stimulated with pyrophosphomonoester antigen in vitro showed preferential expansion of the gammadelta T cells expressing Vgamma2- and Vdelta2-TCR chains with these structural features as compared with those stimulated with a polyclonal mitogen phytohemagglutinin. TCR gene transfer studies indicated that alanine substitution of lysine at position 108 in Jgamma1.2 (gammaK108) or deltaL97 abrogated the responsiveness of Vgamma2/Vdelta2-TCR to all kinds of the non-peptide antigens without affecting the response to anti-CD3 antibody. Furthermore, alanine substitution of arginine at position 51 in Vdelta2 segment (deltaR51) adjacent to gammaK108 in the Vgamma2/Vdelta2-gammadelta TCR also abolished the antigen responsiveness. These results strongly suggested that a hydrophobic and two cationic residues (deltaL97, gammaK108 and deltaR51) clustered in a particular topology at the surface edge of the pocket structure of Vgamma2/Vdelta2-gammadelta TCR played essential roles in the recognition of non-peptide antigens.