The question of derepression ofH-2 specificities in virus-infected cells: Failure to detect specific alloreactive T cells after systemic virus infection or alloantigens detectable by alloreactive T cells on virus-infected target cells

Cultured cells of variousH-2 haplotypes were infected acutely with vaccinia, lymphocytic choriomeningitis, or vesicular stomatitis virus and tested for the appearance of newly expressed, unexpected alloantigens or the absence of expected antigens of variousH-2 haplotypes. No repression or derepression of unexpected alloantigens could be detected when such specificities were sought by using alloreactive cytotoxic T cells. Similarly, immune virus-specific cytotoxic T cells from various strains of mice with differentH-2 haplotypes did not lyse uninfectedH-2-incompatible target cells differentially in an alloantigen-specific fashion. Therefore, it seems unlikely that the H-2-restricted specificity of cytotoxic T cells generated in these acute virus infections can be explained by their being sensitized to derepressed H-2 antigens.Abbreviations used in this paper are H major transplantation antigen - LCMV lymphocytic choriomeningitis - VSV vesicular stomatitis virus - MLC mixed lymphocyte culture