Mitogenic activity of Clostridium perfringens enterotoxin in human peripheral lymphocytes

Clostridium perfringens enterotoxin (CPE) was found to possess interferon (IFN)-producing and mitogenic activities to human peripheral blood mononuclear cells. Both activities were demonstrated only in the T lymphocyte-rich fraction from healthy volunteers. The IFN produced appeared to be gamma-type since the activity of the IFN was neutralized by antiserum against human IFN-gamma. With formalin-treated CPE, the IFN-producing and mitogenic activities were weakly found. Similar findings were also obtained in the mouse lethality and cytotoxicity to Vero (African green monkey) cells, suggesting that the biological activities of the CPE molecule may be existing on the similar (or the same) sites. From these findings, human peripheral T cells may be one of useful reagents to study the mode of action of CPE since CPE was found to be a T cell mitogen which is supposed to be a superantigen.