Lymphocyte metabolism and effector function expression are regulated by antigen/mitogen and lymphokine binding to cell surface receptors. We are investigating the physiological consequences of mitogen and lymphokine mediated signals by isolating and characterizing genes which are transcriptionally regulated by these events. We expect that genes induced within a few hours after antigen or mitogen activation of lymphocytes will be fundamentally important for the initiation of proliferation of lymphocytes will be fundamentally important for the initiation of proliferation and effector function expression in these cells. We have shown that the c-myc oncogene is transcriptionally induced as early as none hour after the activation of murine B cells with LPS of T cells with Con A. Two additional proto-oncogenes, c-myb and c-fos, are similarly regulated by IL-e and PHA binding, respectively, to human T lymphocytes. Thus, three oncogenes are members of the gene family regulated by mitogen binding to the surface of lymphocytes. The identification and characterization of additional members of this inducible gene family is currently in progress utilizing PHA stimulated human peripheral bloot T cells, subtraction cDNA cloning methodology, and DNA-mediated gene transfer.
