Recognition of exon‐shuffled class II molecules by T helper cells

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Abstract
Exon shuffled I‐Aβ genes transfected into the B lymphoma cell line A20‐2J were used to localize the epitope recognized by the monoclonal antibody 10.2.16 to the carboxy terminal portion of the β1 domain. In addition, several T helper cell hybrids were tested against these novel I‐A molecules and the following observations were made: (a) the β1 domain of Aβ plays a dominant role in the restricted recognition by T helper cells; (b) there appear to be multiple restriction epitopes on the I‐A molecule; (c) these epitopes can consist of conformational epitopes created by specific α and β chains or consist of the polymorphic determinants encoded on the β chain alone, and (d) these novel I‐A molecules serve as restriction elements in the antigen‐specific recognition by T cells and in one case stimulate an alloreaction in the absence of antigen.