Relationship between lymphocyte suppressor activity on immunoglobulin production and presence of autoantibodies in patients with chronic liver disease

Abstract

We Studied the relationship between concanavalin A-induced suppressor activity (Con ASA) of peripheral lymphocytes and presence of autoantibodies in patients with chronic liver disease.
Among 21 patients studied, 5 had liver cirrhosis, 13 had chronic active hepatitis, and 3 had chronic inactive hepatitis. Eleven healty adults were used as controls. Peripheral blood lymphocytes prepared from the patients and from the controls were precultured with Con A for 2 days. Con A-activated lymphocytes were added to the fresh peripheral blood lymphocytes obtained from a normal donor and cultured for 7 days with Pokeweed mitogen. ConASA was calculated by counting the number of immnoglobulin-forming cells from these cultures.
ConASA among normal controls were 100.9±15.0% (Mean±2SD). According to.this ConASA, patients with chronic liver discase were divided into three subgroups; normalactivity, low-activity, and high-activity group. Autoantibodie (i.e., anti-DNA antibody, antinuclear factor, rheumatoid factor, anti-smooth muscle antibody, and anti-mitochondrial antibody) were detected more frequently in sera from patients with low or high-activity than those with normal-activity. These results suggest that abnormalities of suppreSsor function are frequently observed in the patients with chronic liver disease and they are related to the appearance of autoantibodies.