Ilowite N T, Wedgwood R J, Rose L M, Clark E A, Lindgren C G, Ochs H D
Department of Pediatrics, School of Medicine, University of Washington, Seattle.
J Rheumatol. 1987 Oct;14(5):957-63.
Immunologic abnormalities described in juvenile rheumatoid arthritis (JRA) have been largely confined to mitogen or antigen driven proliferation assays. We studied antigen specific antibody production using the neoantigen bacteriophage phi X 174 in vivo and in vitro; defective responses were found in all 8 patients with JRA studied. These could not be attributed to circulating anti-T cell antibodies, but may relate to lymphocyte subset abnormalities found by 2 color analyses. These immunologic aberrations may play a direct role in the pathogenesis of JRA or, alternatively, may be a secondary event.
