Expression Analysis of the Ligand to Ly-6E.1 Mouse Hematopoietic Stem Cell Antigen

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

Ly-6E.1 antigen was proposed as a regulatory molecule of T lymphocyte activation, a hematopoietic stem cell marker, a memory cell marker, and an adhesion molecule. Though there were several reports suggesting the presence of Ly-6 ligand, the characterization of the ligand was not yet performed. As an attempt to screen the expression of Ly-6E.1 ligand, we prepared a probe for detecting Ly-6E.1 ligand by producing a fusion protein between Ly-6E.1 and hlgC_r1. A mammalian cell expression vector with Ly-6E.1/hlgC_r1 chimeric cDNA was transfected in SP2/0-Ag14 myeloma cells, and stable transfectants were selected. The fusion protein was produced as a dimer and maintained the epitopes for monoclonal antibodies specific for Ly-6E.1 and for anti-human lgG antibody. The purified fusion protein through Gammabind G column was used for FACS analyses for the expression of Ly-6E.1 ligand. The fusion protein interacted with several cell lines originating from B cells, T cells, or monocytes. The fusion protein also strongly stained bone marrow, lymph node, and spleen cells, but thymic cells weakly, if any. The staining was more obvious in C57BL/6 (Ly-6^b) than Balb/c (Ly-6^a) mice. These results suggest that the interaction of Ly-6E.1 with Ly-6E.1 ligand may function both in the stem cell environment and in the activation of mature lymphocytes. The fusion protein may be a valuable tool in characterization of biochemical properties of the Ly-6E.1 ligand and, further, in isolating its cDNA.