Skip to main content
. 2011 Dec;134(4):434–447. doi: 10.1111/j.1365-2567.2011.03502.x

Figure 9.

Figure 9

Non-B cells act as antigen-presenting cells (APCs) for hepatitis B virus e antigen (HBeAg) -specific double-negative (DN) T cells, and interleukin-15 (IL-15) is crucial for proliferation. (a) HBeAg-specific DN T cells were purified by negative depletion as described and cultured with purified B cells from B10 mice or T-cell-depleted splenocytes from B-cell knockout (KO) mice in the presence of HBeAg-specific peptide p120–140 at the indicated concentrations. Fluorescently labelled cells were collected by flow cytometry and gated as DN (CD4− and CD8−) and analysed for Vβ11 positivity. The ancestry plot indicates the activation of cells. (b) Recombinant IL-15 (5 μg/ml) was added to HBeAg-specific DN T cells cultured with B-cell APCs, which do not support proliferation, and compared with dendritic cells/macrophages (DC/MΦ) APCs. The ancestry plot indicates the activation of cells. Data shown are representative of multiple independent experiments.