The relationships between Ts-inducing and Th and Tp-inducing determinants on a large protein antigen

The immunogenicity of several small monomeric protein antigens - lysozyme, myoglobin, cytochrome c and insulin - has been intensely studied during the past decade to try to learn the rules of the game. It is likely that before the stage is reached at which we can predict the nature of the determinants responded against by each lymphoid subpopulation, other types of molecules such as fibrous proteins, multimeric large proteins and viral capsid proteins will have to be examined, and such studies have commenced recently. In an effort to generalize our studies with lysozyme to one of these systems, we have been exploring the response of H-2k, CBA/J mice to E. coli B-galactosidase, GZ, a tetramer with a monomer molecular weight of 116,250. We feel that aspects of this system have important implications for the vaccine problem, and these will be summarized at the end of the article.