Figure 1.
Evidence of T-cell tolerance in in vitro cultures of splenocytes from naive hepatitis B virus e antigen (HBeAg) × 7/16-5 T-cell receptor (TCR) double transgenic (dbl-Tg) mice. Splenocytes from 7/16-5 TCR-Tg mice and HBeAg × 7/16-5 dbl-Tg mice were collected and (a) 4 × 105 splenocytes/well were cultured in the presence of 1 μg/ml of the HBeAg-derived peptide 120–140 and CD69 expression was analysed by FACS at day 3 and day 6. (b) Supernatants of pooled splenocytes from 7/16-5-Tg and HBeAg × 7/16-5 dbl-Tg mice cultured with various concentrations of the HBc/HBe antigens were collected at day 2 and interleukin-2 (IL-2) was measured by ELISA. The data shown are representative of three independent experiments.