Murine spleen and lymph node L3T4+ T cells were found to spontaneously produce high levels of interleukin 3 (IL3) and granulocyte-macrophage colony-stimulating factor (GM-CSF) in cultures containing 10% fetal calf serum (FCS) in the absence of other stimulation. The IL3 and GM-CSF activities in culture supernatants peake between the fifth and seventh day of culture. The specificity of the bioassays was attested by the use of rabbit anti-IL3 and anti-GM-CSF antibodies, as well as by the detection of a maximal accumulation of IL3 and GM-CSF mRNA on the fourth day. In contrast, no significant activities of IL2, IL4 or interferon-gamma were detected in these culture supernatants. The markedly limited production of IL3 and GM-CSF in cultures performed in 1% autologous normal mouse serum and the inhibitory effect of anti-Ia or anti-L3T4 monoclonal antibody strongly suggest that the selective production of most, if not all IL3 and GM-CSF by L3T4+ T cells is a result of activation of L3T4+ T cells by fetal calf serum. All the strains of mice tested except athymic nude mice produced substantial amounts of IL3 and GM-CSF during the culture. This is in contrast to a previous report (Palacios, Eur. J. Immunol. 1984. 14: 599), indicating that only spleen cells of the MRL strain homozygous for the lpr gene spontaneously release IL3 in cultures. We found that spleen and lymph node cells from MRL/MpJ-lpr/lpr or C57BL/6J-lpr/lpr mice released, in fact, much less IL3 and GM-CSF in cultures. This was, however, due to the high proportion of the peculiar lpr Ly-2-/L3T4-T cells in spleen and lymph nodes, since after depletion of this lpr T cell subset, lymph node cells from C57BL/6J-lpr/lpr mice produced IL3 and GM-CSF at levels comparable to those in C57BL/6J-+/+ mice. These results further support the notion that the lpr Ly-2-/L3T4- T cell subset is immunologically nonfunctional and its accumulation dilutes functional L3T4+ T cells in mice bearing the lpr mutation.