Spontaneous and Concanavalin A-induced suppressor activity in control and Hodgkin's disease patients.

Indirect evidence suggests that abnormal regulation of B cells exists in Hodgkin's disease (HD) due, perhaps, to the sequestration of regulatory T-lymphocyte subpopulations in the spleen in this condition. Other work implicates the B-cell itself in this abnormality. In this study we have attempted to measure regulatory T-cell function by quantitating spontaneous and Concanavalin A(Con A)-induced suppressor activity in T-enriched spleen cells from control and HD spleens for pokeweed mitogen(PWM)-induced immunoglobulin (Ig) production. Using this polyclonal system, HD patients' spleen T-lymphocytes could not be shown to differ markedly from the control series. Cells capable of spontaneous and mitogen-induced modulation of Ig synthesis were present in both populations and showed a reciprocal relationship implying the activation of the same cell type. In this respect HD and control spleen resembled peripheral blood. A limited parallel investigation of PWM-regulatory activity in cells from spleen and peripheral blood from individual patients was also undertaken. Individual patients showed wide variation in suppression between the two compartments and, therefore, measurements of functional capacity in blood alone may not provide a true estimate of total regulatory capacity in lymphoma patients.