Abstract

Most human peripheral blood γδ T lymphocytes respond to hitherto unidentified mycobacterial antigens. Four ligands from Mycobacterium tuberculosis strain H37Rv that stimulated proliferation of a major human γδ T cell subset were isolated and partially characterized. One of these ligands, TUBag4, is a 5′ triphosphorylated thymidine-containing compound, to which the three other stimulatory molecules are structurally related. These findings support the hypothesis that some γδ T cells recognize nonpeptidic ligands.