E-rosette inhibiting substance in Hodgkin's disease spleen extracts.

Patients with Hodgkin's disease often manifest impairment of cell-mediated immune responses in both in vivo and in vitro tests, as well as a markedly decreased percentage of E rosette-forming (T) lymphocytes in the peripheral blood. This report describes the inhibition of E-rosette formation by normal peripheral blood lymphocytes after incubation with extracts prepared from the spleens of patients with Hodgkin's disease. Such extracts also depressed E-rosette formation by the peripheral blood lymphocytes of patients with Hodgkin's disease after those cells had been restored to normal function by prior incubation in foetal calf serum. Similarly prepared extracts from the spleens of normal donors had no immunodepressive effect. The E-rosette inhibitory substance in the Hodgkin's disease spleen extracts was found to be a complex containing beta-lipoprotein, C-reactive protein, and C1q.