Almost all responses of naive T cells require co-stimulation, i.e. engagement of the clonotypic TCR with relevant antigen/MHC and the co-stimulatory molecule CD28. How CD28 contributes to T-cell proliferation remains poorly understood, with widely conflicting reports existing which may reflect different methods of co-ligating receptors. Some CD28 mAb, however, can stimulate T-cell proliferation without the need for TCR co-ligation, and thus provide unique tools to dissect proliferative signals mediated through CD28 alone. Using primary peripheral T cells from CD28-transgenic mice, we show that both the YMNM and Lck-binding motifs, but not the Itk-binding motif, in CD28 are required for proliferation. Given that the YMNM motif recruits both phosphoinositide 3-kinase (PI3K) and the exchange factor Vav1, we investigated the role of these two molecules in CD28-mediated proliferation. In p110delta(D910A/D910A) transgenic T cells, which are defective in PI3K activation following CD28 ligation, proliferation was comparable to that in wild-type cells. By contrast, T-cell proliferation was abolished in Vav1(-/-) cells. Although we did not address the role of Grb2 in CD28 signalling, these results indicate that CD28 can mediate Lck- and Vav1-dependent proliferative signals independently of PI3K.
