[Changes of guinea pig T lymphocytes after E rosette formation -expression of Fc and complement receptors-(author's transl)].
The ability to form spontaneous E (rabbit erythrocyte; RRBC) rosettes has been established as the characteristics common to T lineage lymphocytes in the guinea pig as in the case of human (sheep erythrocyte; SRBC), and the E rosette method has been widely employed to identify and to purify T cells. Since the author was interested whether the T cells purified by this method could be regarded as the physiologically normal T cells, several experiments were carried out followed by the results as listed below. (1) Significant increases in percentages of EA- and EAC-rosette forming cells (RFC) were observed among guinea pig thymocytes and lymph node cells following the formation of spontaneous E rosettes with RRBC in test tubes. (2) Similar but somewhat higher increases in the proportion of EA- and EAC-RFC were observed in the two T cell-rich populations, one was T-enriched by the E monolayer method and the other was done by the nylon wool column method and the E monolayer method. In the both cell populations, the E monolayer-adhered cells (T cells) were selected and assayed on the E monolayers. (3) Double rosette assays by E with EA or EAC showed that 50-80% of the Fc and/or complement receptor positive lymphocytes on the E monolayers were E-RFC. These findings show that a subset of the guinea pig T cells is altered to express Fc and/or complement receptors on the surfaces following contact with RRBC.