Suppressive effects of C3b on monocyte-dependent T cell proliferation

The effect of C3b treatment of human monocytes on secondary antigen-dependent T cell response was studied. When antigen-specific T cell blasts were cultivated together with C3b-treated monocytes the proliferative response was inhibited in a dose-dependent fashion. This suppressive effect was specific for C3b because heat-inactivated C3b or buffer alone had no influence on T cell proliferation. In part, this suppressive effect is mediated through a C3b-induced decreased expression of class II antigens on the surface of treated monocytes, but another suppressive mechanism exists because the C3b pretreatment of monocytes also led to an inhibition of the proliferative response in a class II antigen-independent T cell proliferation system. In addition to the C3b data, our finding that treatment of monocytes with C3d resulted in a lower T cell proliferation, while C3c has no effect, suggested that C3d, which could be generated from C3b in the culture, may induce the second inhibitory mechanism.