Clones of cytotoxic lymphocytes in culture: the difference in specificity between stimulated and nonstimulated cytotoxic lymphocytes.

The specificity of individual clones of cytotoxic lymphocytes (CL) which develop upon stimulation by semi-allogeneic cells, have been examined and compared with the specificity of CL clones which develop spontaneously when normal spleen cells are cultured without stimulator cells. It was found that the specificity of stimulated clones was different from the specificity of 'spontaneous' clones. Specifically stimulated clones from CBA cells cultured with (CBA x DBA)F1 stimulator cells, did not discriminate between the H2dP815 and H2dDBA splenic blast, and lysed both targets. In contrast, spontaneous CL clones from cultures of CBA or (CBA x DBA)F1 spleen cells were found to lyse either P815 or DBA blast, but not both. The results indicated that the spontaneous CL clones were not a representative sample of the the total pool of CL.