Cell-mediated lympholysis responses against autologous cells modified with haptenic sulfhydryl reagents. IV. Self-determinants recognized by wild-type anti-H-2K^b and H-2D^b-restricted cytotoxic T cells specific for sulfhydryl and amino-reactive haptens are absent in certain H-2 mutant strains

Virus-specific H-2-restricted cytotoxic T cells (CTL) have been found to discriminate between wild-type and mutant class I molecules. The only results reported concerning a hapten-self model, however, indicate that TNP-specific CTL do not discriminate between wild-type and mutant self determinants. In the present study, hapten-specific CTL generated against N-iodoacetyl-N'-(5-sulfonic-1-naphthyl) ethylene diamine-modified syngeneic cells (AED-self) were used to determine whether a hapten that is known to react with different cell surface sites than TNP can induce CTL that distinguish mutant H-2K and D molecules from those of wild type. The findings of this study indicate that H-2K^b-AED-self cytotoxic effector cells can discriminate between self-determinants of H-2K^b wild-type and the H-2^bm1 and H-2^bm11 mutants, but not between wild-type and H-2^bm6 and H-2^bm9 mutants. H-2D^b-AED-self effector cells were also found to discriminate between self-determinants of H-2D^b wild-type and the H-2^bm13 and H-2^bm14 mutants. Furthermore, cold target competition experiments indicated that the bm1 and bm11 K^b products also lack some determinants recognized by anti-wild-type K^b TNP-specific CTL. These findings provide the first demonstration that hapten-self-specific effectors can detect alterations in H-2 mutant class I molecules. The results in the present report also support the hypothesis that haptens do not have to derivatize H-2 molecules in order to form antigens recognized by H-2-restricted CTL. These findings are discussed with respect to the involvement of self-determinants on MHC and non-MHC cell surface molecules.