The human in vitro anti-type 4 pneumococcal polysaccharide antibody response is regulated by suppressor T cells

In order to study the regulation of the human B-cell response to T-cell independent type 2 (TI-2) antigens, we analysed the role of T cells in the in vitro antibody response to type 4 pneumococcal polysaccharide (PS4). We found that T cells can positively regulate the in vitro antibody response to PS4 when they are added into an in vitro B-cell culture system. In addition we demonstrated that T cells exert a negatively regulating activity. We found that T cells, when cultured for 24 h in the presence of high concentrations of PS4, can suppress the anti-PS4 antibody response. This down-regulation of the anti-PS4 B-cell response is shown to be antigen specific and MHC-restricted. Furthermore, PS4-specific T-cell mediated suppression appears to be radioresistant and confined to the T-cell preparations enriched for CD8+ cells. The results show that analogous to results obtained in mice, human T cells are able to exert a regulatory control of the antibody response to TI-2 antigens.