Abstract
Sheep erythrocytes are uniform electrophoretically and those treated with tannic acid (electrophoretic mobility test indicator cells: EIC) are able to adsorb a minute quantity of a biologically active substance, causing a change in the electrical charge on the surface. This change can be precisely detected with a tanned erythrocyte electrophoretic mobility test (TEEM) by using a newly designed automated cell electrophoresis analyzer with high reproducibility developed by the Shimazu Corporation.
For the purpose of the study on biologically active substance produced through a immunological response, EIC were incubated in the sera of human renal transplants, cancer patients and blood transfused recipient mice and in the lymphocyte supernatants stimulated with mixed lymphocyte culture (MLC) and some mitogens and in IL-2 and IAP, and each changes in the electrical charge on the surface of EIC were observed using this analyzer.
On the study of the sera of human renal transplants, the electrophoretic mobility of EIC (TEEM) was unchanged in the non-rejection group. In the rejection group, 3_??_7 days before the rejections occurred, the TEEM tended to be accelerated (P<0.005), and when the rejections recovered, it tended to be delayed.
On the sera of cancer patients, no significant differences of TEEM were seen compared to the sera of healthy volunteers.
The TEEM was also unchanged by the sera of blood transfused recipient mice compared to non blood transfused mice and by the lymphocyte supernatants stimulated with MLC, PHA and PPD and by IL-2 and IAP.
The results of this study suggest that among the sera obtained from some immunological responses, only the sera of renal transplanted patients showed the change of electrical charge of EIC and this certain TEEM accelerating biologically active factor which is neither IL-2 nor IAP has already been released into the serum before the rejection is clinically confirmed, and it is expected that TEEM could be effectively used in the future to detect a rejection at an earlier stage and predict the prognosis more accurately in human renal transplants.
