Suppressive activity of long-term myelin basic protein-specific SJL T cell lines.

Myelin basic protein (MBP)-specific T cell lines derived from SJL mice lose the ability to transfer adoptively experimental allergic encephalomyelitis (EAE) after 5-6 restimulations with antigen in vitro. In order to test whether such lines were suppressive, non-encephalitogenic T cell lines were co-cultured with a freshly derived encephalitogenic T cell line. Following co-culture in the presence of MBP and irradiated syngeneic spleen cells the mixture was transferred adoptively to syngeneic recipients.