Antibody-dependent cytotoxicity mediated by cells eluted from synovial tissues of patients with rheumatoid arthritis and juvenile rheumatoid arthritis.

Cell suspensions containing an average of 78% lymphocytes were obtained from synovial tissues of 26 patients with rheumatoid arthritis and 10 patients with juvenile rheumatoid arthritis. These cells were shown to mediate cytotoxicity against 51Cr-labeled chicken erythrocytes sensitized with a rabbit anti-chicken erythrocyte antiserum. Nylon column filtration of the cells increased the proportion of lymphocytes and usually also the cytotoxicity, which suggested that at least some of the effector cells were lymphocytes. The cytotoxic activity of the cells obtained from rheumatoid synovial tissue was always lower than that obtained with the patients' peripheral blood lymphocytes. No significant change in cytotoxicity of normal peripheral blood lymphocytes was observed after these cells had been treated in the same manner as the rheumatoid synovial tissues.