1989 Volume 12 Issue 1 Pages 88-96
The effector cell function and immunological phenotype of peripheral blood lymphocytes (PBL) and cultured PBL in the presence of rIL 2 with or without rIFNγ for 14 days were investigated in 20 patients with advanced gastric carcinoma (10 resectable and 10 nonresectable cases).
PBL cultured with HL 2 in experimental groups acquired a higher cytolytic activities against K 562 and Daudi cells detected even at lower effector/target cell ratio as compared with that of PBL. However, rIL 2-activated PBL obtained from patients with nonresectable cancer showed a siginificantly decreased lytic activities as compared with those of patients with resectable cancer and normal healthy controls (p<0.05). rlL 2-activated PBL (LAK cells) were analyzed to investigate the phenotypic characterization by two-color flow cytometry. The LAK cells from patients showed markedly increased proportion of CD4+Leu 8- cells which were believed as helper T cells, and decreased proportion of CD8+CD11- cells which were considered as killer T cells. Thus, a more likely possibility based on the data presented here is that CD4+Leu 8- cells from healthy donors and patients might be mainly active as LAK-effector cells.
Depressed LAK cell activities in patients with nonresectable carcinoma were restored tonormal level by additional cultivation of exogeneous rIFNγ. However, there was not augmented phenomenon of LAK cell activities with rIL 2 plus rIFNγ in normal healthy controls and patients with resectable carcinoma. The augmented LAK cell activities by rIL 2 with rIFNγ were accompanied with increase in the proportion of CD8+CD11- cells and Leu 7+CD16- cells, but not CD4+Leu 8- cells. Thus, cell population responsible for augmented LAK cell activities showed a phenotype of CD8+CD11- and Leu 7+CD16-. The results suggest that LAK-effector cells are heterogeneous nature with respect to immunological phenotype.
