Selective identification of Valpha14i T cells using slide-immobilized, CD1d-antigen complexes

The ability to correlate changes in antigen-reactive lymphocytes with disease will provide information needed to develop strategies for combating illness. One critical group of lymphocytes are the CD1-restricted T cells. It is desirable to use CD1 molecules in an array format to query CD1-restricted lymphocytes in humans. To investigate the feasibility of this technique, we employed mCD1d and alpha-galactosylceramide to demonstrate that-slide immobilized, CD1d-alpha-GalCer complexes capture an NKT cell hybridoma in the presence of a competitor. The success of this scheme represents the first step toward the development of CD1-antigen arrays that could be used to profile biological samples.