Alloreactive cytotoxic T cells induce DNA fragmentation in peritoneal macrophages: evidence for target cell killing by cytotoxic T cellsin vivo

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Abstract
This report addresses the question whether cytotoxic T cells can cause target cell death in vivo by examining target cell DNA fragmentation. The results show that alloreactive cytotoxic T cells induced significant DNA fragmentation in peritoneal macrophages in vivo and that the DNA fragment was a multiple of 180 ± 30 bp. Furthermore, the effector cells which caused this characteristic DNA fragmentation were CD8+ T cells. These results demonstrate that cytotoxic T cells can cause target cell death in vivo.