HOME HELP FEEDBACK SUBSCRIPTIONS ARCHIVE SEARCH TABLE OF CONTENTS		QUICK SEARCH:   [advanced] Author: Keyword(s): Year:  Vol:  Page:

This Article Full Text (PDF) Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Services Similar articles in this journal Alert me to new issues of the journal Download to citation manager Citing Articles Citing Articles via Google Scholar Google Scholar Articles by Asantila, T. Articles by Toivanen, P. Search for Related Content PubMed Articles by Asantila, T. Articles by Toivanen, P.

Cellular Proliferation As an Index of Immune Competence

Department of Medical Microbiology, Turku University, 20520 Turku, and Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Satakunta Central Hospital, 28500 Pori, Finland

Abstract

Sir: We fully agree with Cunningham and Lafferty (1) that cellular proliferation alone can be an unreliable index of immune competence, particularly when fetal lymphocytes are concerned. Therefore, in our study (2) referred to above, microscopic examination was also employed to show destruction of the tubular epithelium in the rat kidney by human fetal lymphocytes (Fig. 2 in Reference 2). Such a destruction is not obtained with immunoincompetent cells proliferating in a xenogeneic environment (3). For quantitation of the response by the fetal lymphocytes, we preferred cell proliferation indices based on the uptake of a radioactive DNA-precursor. The quantitation revealed an increase in the xenogeneic graft-vs-host competence of fetal lymphocytes with the increasing age of the fetus. These observations clearly indicate that we were not measuring only the spontaneous proliferation of fetal lymphocytes, which has been shown to decrease with the increasing age of the fetus (4).