Hanseníase: Resumos Hanseniasis Abstracts Bacteriologia, Imunologia Bacteriology, Immunology

H blood. Increased percentages of OKT8 cytotoxic/ suppressor cells were observed in untreated, nonreactional lepromatous patients. Conversely, lepromatous patients suffering from erythema nodosum leprosum, an Aithus-like phenomenon, exhibited a transient drop in the percentage of OKT8" cells with a correlative increase in the proliferative response to Tcell mitogens. We studied the proliferative response to M. leprae of OKT4* and OKT8* cells isolated by a negative selection procedure using antibody-induced cytotoxicity plus complement. None of these subpopulations proliferated when incubated with M. leprae. In some patients, control treatment of mononuclear cells with complement alone induced the reappearance of a strong proliferative response to M. leprae, suggesting the existence of an active suppressor mechanism through soluble factors of an unknown nature. In MLMinduced murine leprosy, a progressive decrease was observed in the proliferative response to concanavalin A (ConA), and an early decrease in interleukin 2 activity in supernatants from ConA-stimulated spleen cells. Splenic T-cells from MLM-infected mice transferred into naive recipients accelerated the local MLM growth in these recipients, suggesting that suppressor T cells may play a pathogenic role in the progression of MLM infection. — Author's summary.