Responses of antigen-specific long-term murine T cell lines to wheat gliadin fractions.

Recent evidence suggests that the four electrophoretically defined gliadin subfractions (alpha, beta, gamma and omega) of wheat can induce the typical pathological finding of coeliac disease. We have prepared long-term murine T cell lines to gliadin and its four major subfractions. The cell lines were tested in proliferative assays with each homologous gliadin subfraction, and to the other gliadin subfractions. There was some cross-reactivity, with unfractionated gliadin and its alpha-subfraction being the most antigenic, while omega-gliadin was the least. These data demonstrate that gliadin components are effective stimuli for specific T cell responses, and further suggest that the alpha-gliadin subfraction generates the highest specific responses. This accords with observations in man that all four gliadin subfractions exacerbate coeliac mucosa, but that the alpha-subfraction is the most active.