Biosafety classification is based on U.S. Public Health Service Guidelines, it is the responsibility of the customer to ensure that their facilities comply with biosafety regulations for their own country.
The line is dependent on IL-2 for growth and can be used to measure IL-2 activity in a very rapid and sensitive assay.
The cells are commonly used for characterization of lymphokines and cytokines.
The HT-2 cell line was derived in 1979 by J. Watson at the University of Auckland from a culture of C57BL spleen cells activated by sheep erythrocytes in the presence of IL-2.
This cell line was originally deposited as derived from the BALB/c strain of mice. Recent testing at ATCC and by the NIST Mouse STR Consortium using mouse STR technology has shown that the STR profile has more alleles in common with a C57BL mouse strain rather than BALB/c.
Reference: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31220119
In addition to IL-2, substantial proliferation is seen in the presence of interleukin 4 (interleukin-4, IL-4, also known as BSF-1).
Kupper T, et al. Growth of an interleukin-2/interleukin 4-dependent T cell line induced by granulocyte-macrophage colony-stimulating factor (GM-CSF). J. Immunol. 138: 4288-4292, 1987. PubMed: 2953804
Ho SN, et al. Differential bioassay of interleukin-2 and interleukin-4. J. Immunol. Methods 98: 99-104, 1987. PubMed: 3494085
Lee F, et al. Isolation and characterization of a mouse interleukin cDNa clone that expresses B-cell stimulatory factor 1 activities and T-cell and mast-cell-stimulating activities. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 83: 2061-2065, 1986. PubMed: 3083412
Watson J. Continuous proliferation of murine antigen-specific helper T lymphocytes in culture. J. Exp. Med. 150: 1510-1519, 1979. PubMed: 92524
. . J. Biol. Response Modif. 4: 96-109, 1985.
Kupper T, et al. Autocrine growth of T cells independent of interleukin 2: identification of interleukin 4 (IL 4, BSF-1) as an autocrine growth factor for a cloned antigen-specific helper T cell. J. Immunol. 138: 4280-4287, 1987. PubMed: 2953803
Woods A, et al. Granulocyte-macrophage colony stimulating factor produced by cloned L3T4a+, class II-restricted T cells induces HT-2 cells to proliferate. J. Immunol. 138: 4293-4297, 1987. PubMed: 2953805
Kotanides H, Reich NC. Interleukin-4-induced STAT6 recognizes and activates a target site in the promoter of the interleukin-4 receptor gene. J. Biol. Chem. 271: 25555-25561, 1996. PubMed: 8810328
