抄録
Gold salts and D-penicillamine have been found to be especially beneficial therapeutic agents for rheumatoid arthritis. But the pharmacological action of these drugs on rheumatoid arthritis was not exactly known. So we have paid attention to lymphocytes which play an important role in pathogenesis of rheumatoid arthritis, and studied on the effect of these drugs to lymphocytes, especially on the membrane of human lymphocytes.
The results obtained were as follows.
1. Only in the lymphocytes treated with both aurothiomalate and D-penicillamine the dec-rease of percentage of T-lymphocytes was observed with a statistically significant difference (P< 0.01 or P < 0.05) between the control and the treated lymphocytes. But the percentage of B-lymphocytes did not decrease, in comparison with the control. In addition, the viability of the control and the treated lymphocytes was over 90% by the 0.1% trypan blue exclusion test.
2. Only in the lymphocytes treated with 50 mM D-penicillamine, about 50% of smoother cells disappeared. The surface changes of smoother cells were investigated for irregular outlines, granular structures and cavitations by the scanning electron microscopic technique. But control and the lymphocytes treated with 10 mM aurothiomalate showed no surface changes.
3. The values of protein volume in the supernatants treated with 50 mM D-penicillamine and 5 mM aurothiomalate and control were 0.68 mg, 0.32 mg and 0.22 mg/ml, respectively.
4. Only supernatant of lympocyte suspension treated with 50 mM D-penicillamine inhibited hemagglutinat ion.
