T cell avidity determines the level of CTL activation

To investigate the influence of avidity on T cell activation in vitro and in vivo, we analyzed T cells from St40 and St42 mice, which express the same transgenic TCR specific for an E1a-derived epitope of adenovirus type 5 with different expression levels and therefore different avidities. Splenocytes from both strains showed comparable cytolytic activities and required identical peptide concentrations for efficient target cell lysis and up-regulation of activation markers. However, the kinetics of CD25 up-regulation were strikingly different: whereas the majority of the high-avidity St42 T cells up-regulated the IL-2Ralpha chain within a few hours, low-avidity St40 T cells expressed only 50% of the CD25 of high-avidity T cells after 2 days. In addition, low-avidity T cells proliferated poorly and displayed impaired secretion of IL-2 and IFN-gamma. Similar results were seen with high-avidity St42 T cells stimulated with a partial agonistic peptide. Upon adoptive transfer and subsequent immunization with adenovirus, both high- and low-avidity T cells expanded, but St40 T cells were undetectable 10 days after immunization. Our model system now allows analysis of whether T cells with identical specificities but different avidities influence each other during activation and homeostatic proliferation.