Propriocidal apoptosis of mature T lymphocytes occurs at S phase of the cell cycle

We found that mature nontransformed CD4⁺ and CD8⁺ T lymphocytes could be made susceptible to T cell receptor(TcR)-mediated apoptosis by pretreatment with interleukin-4 (IL-4) or interleukin-2 (IL-2). The degree of susceptibility to death could be correlated with the level of cell cycling as measured by thymidine incorporation, cell doubling times, or the number of cells incorporating bromodeoxyuridine during S phase. However, using pharmacologic cell cycle blocking agents, we found that progression through the cell cycle was not required for cell death. Rather, we found that cells must be in a certain phase of the cell cycle to be susceptible to TcR-mediated death. Cells blocked in G1 phase were resistant to T cell receptor-induced apoptosis, whereas cells blocked in S phase were susceptible. These observations suggest that an important feature of growth lymphokines is their ability to drive T cells into portions of the cell cycle where they are sensitive to antigen receptor-induced apoptosis. Furthermore, these results provide additional evidence that the T cell growth lymphokines IL-2 and IL-4 may participate in the down-regulation of T cell responses by apoptosis a pathway we have termed “propriocidal regulation”.