Mitogen-activated murine T and B Iymphocytes produce soluble mediators that potentiate the inhibitory effect of bone marrow cells on the growth of leukemic cells in vitro. 7-Interferon is a T-cell product increasing the cytostatic activity of bone marrow cells. An increase in the cytostatic activity under the effect of T-cell soluble mediators was characteristic of bone marrow cells from nude mice.
Key Words: T and B lymphocytes; bone marrow cell; tumor growth inhibitionBone marrow cells (BMC) phenotypically similar to bone marrow natural suppressor cells inhibit the growth of leukemic cells in vitro [1,2,[8][9][10]. Tumor growth suppression by BMC is not associated with tumor cell destruction and is mediated, at least partially, by solutile cytostatic products [9].We investigated the ability of activated T and B lymphocytes to regulate the cytostatic activity (CSA) of BMC by producing soluble factors. Cells were cultured in RPMI-1640 with 10 mM HEPES, 2 mM L-glutamine, 5x10 -5 M 2-mercaptoInstitute oi" Clinical Immunology, Siberian Division, Russian Academy of Medical Sciences, Novosibirsk ethanol, antibiotics, and 7% fetal calf serum (all reagents from Sigma) in a humidified atmosphere with 5% CO 2.
MATERIALS AND METHODS(Splenocytes from normal BDF1 mice were activated with concanavalin A (Pharmacia, 5 ktg/ml) or lipopolysaccharide (E. coli 055 :B5:, Sigma, 20 ~tg/ml) in 25 cm2-plastic flasks (Linbro) (10 ml) tor 24 h. T and B lymphocytes activated with concanavalin A and lipopolysaccharide, respectively, were isolated by the positive penning method [3]. Immunofluorescence analysis of cells [3] showed that the purity of isolated T and B lymphocytes was close to 100%.For preparing culture supernatants, activated lymphocytes (3-4x106 cells/ml) were cultured in a 24-well plate (Linbro) for 24 h. The supernatant was obtained by centrifugation and stored at -20~ until use.In the cytostatic test, BMC (3xl05/well) were cultured with (25%) or without the supernatant from activated T or B lymphocytes in round-bottom 96-well plates (BDSL) tot 20 h. After the medium replacement, P815 or L1210 ceils were added to BMC into wells (104 cells/well) and cultured for 24 h. In the control tests, tumor cells were cultured without adding any cells or with thymocytes incapable of suppressing leukemic cell growth in vitro [1,8]. The level of proliferative activity was measured routinely by-incorporation of 3H-thymidin (Izotop) added in a dose of 0.75 lxCi to all wells 5 h belore the end of culturing.