The Center for Alternatives to Animal Testing is an academic center affiliated with the Division of Toxicological Sciences in the Department of Environmental Health Sciences of the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health.

 

Johns Hopkins School of Public Health

Research Grants 1996-1997

In Vitro Assay for Hapten-Specific Priming of Human T Lymphocytes

Wayne J. Streilein, MD
Schepens Eye Research Institute, Boston, Massachusetts

Streilein and colleagues have previously determined that it is possible to study in vitro the earliest inductive events in contact hypersensitivity using either murine skin or blood as a cellular source. Recent work has revealed that murine Langerhans cells that have been cultured for three days and then hapten-derivatized, display the capacity to activate unprimed hapten-specific cells. The T cells activated in this manner cause contact hypersensitivity when injected in vivo into hapten-derivatized skin. Dendritic cells of the spleen and the blood also acquire the capacity to activate hapten-specific T cells in vitro. The investigators have demonstrated that peripheral blood mononuclear cells can reveal the "fresh" and "cultured" phenotypes, and that primed T cells are preferentially activated by DNCB-derivatized cells. These results, together with evidence suggesting that naive T cells exposed in vitro to DNCB-derivatized peripheral blood mononuclear cells can be activated, lead them to conclude that human epidermal and blood cells can similarly be manipulated in vitro to activate naive T cells that mediate contact hypersensitivity.