The Mouse Primed Lymphocyte Typing (mPLT) Test

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Abstract
The mouse primed lymphocyte typing (mPLT) assay, based on the sequential reactivation of specific immunocompetent, alloantigen‐reactive T blast cells in secondary mixed leucocyte culture (MLC), has been utilized to define the major histocompatibility complex (MHC) Class I‐associated lymphocyte‐stimulating (LS) determinants. The test panel of secondary stimulating cells has been expanded to include 25 B10.W lines (mouse strains carrying MHC regions derived from wild mice), thus permitting examination of more than thirty ‘independently derived’ MHC haplotypes. Data obtained using mPLT cells generated in primary MLC between H‐2 K‐ and/or DL‐disparate strain combinations indicate that each allelic Class I product expresses a unique set of LS determinants recognized by alloreactive T lymphocytes. In addition, we have observed that Class I products, which are apparently serologically identical but which are encoded for by genes of independently derived haplotypes, can express mutually distinct LS determinants. These data suggest that Tlymphocytes possess the capacity to distinguish between Class I antigens that are serologically similar (or even identical) and support the concept that LS determinants recognized by T cells are distinct from the majority of specificities recognized by B cells. This concept has marked importance in interpretation of data in the human system, for which there is now an attempt to correlate serology and PLT.