pubmed:abstractText |
The present studies were designed to probe the role(s) of T cells in preventing or altering tolerance induction in hapten-specific B cells. This was accomplished by using hapten conjugates of normally immunogenic heterologous carriers to selectively inhibit 2,4-dinitrophenyl (DNP)-primed B cells in adoptive transfer experiments in vivo. The data provide strong indications that one critical role of T-cell participation in humoral responses to antigens is to circumvent the development of a tolerogenic signal that, in the absence of such T-cell function, might otherwise ensue after binding of the antigenic determinants by specific precursor B lymphocytes.
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