Monoclonal antibodies raised against engineered soluble mouse T cell receptors and specific for Vα8‐, Vβ2‐ or Vβ10‐bearing T cells

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Abstract
We have characterized a panel of monoclonal antibodies (mAb) produced by immunizing rats with two distinct soluble mouse α/β T cell receptor (TcR). Fifty mAb were found to react with the corresponding surface‐bound TcR. Such observations suggest that the soluble TcR molecules used as immunogen are folded in a conformation similar to the native structure. Furthermore, the binding to T cells of four antibodies was found to correlate with the expression of the Vα8, Vβ2 or Vβ10 gene segments. Finally, staining of T lymphocytes from various mouse strains suggests that (a) the two anti‐Vα8 antibodies recognize different epitopes, and each on only a fraction of Vα8+ cells; (b) the anti‐Vβ10 mAb identifies a Vβ10 polymorphism among mouse strains, and (c) T cells expressing the Vβ2 or Vβ10 gene segments are not subject to major clonal deletion events induced by the major histocompatibility complex class II and Mls products which were tested.