Expression of the T-Cell Receptor γ -Chain Gene Products on the Surface of Peripheral T Cells and T-Cell Blasts Generated by Allogeneic Mixed Lymphocyte Reaction

The γ -chain genes of the T-cell receptors form a family of related genes that are specifically expressed and somatically rearranged in T cells. Using poly- and monoclonal anti-γ antibodies, we studied the cell-surface expression of the γ -chain gene products in mouse peripheral T cells as well as in the T-cell blasts generated by allogeneic mixed lymphocyte reactions. The γ chains are expressed in the Lyt2-,L3T4- subsets of these T-cell populations as disulfide-linked heterodimers. Whereas the electrophoretic mobility and the N-glycosylation of the spleen and lymph-node γ chains are indistinguishable from those of the reported thymocyte γ chain, a minor fraction of the T blasts generated by allogeneic stimulation of B10 lymph-node T cells with B10.BR spleen cells seems to express γ chains with distinct properties. This suggests that the mixed lymphocyte culture conditions exert a selective effect on the expression of γ chains among peripheral T-cell populations.