Restorative effects of defective autologous lymphocyte cytotoxicity by calmodulin antagonists.

Reactivity of lymphocytes from paired living patients with ovarian carcinoma on autologous cancer cells was examined using six established cell lines. Although allogeneic lymphocytes had the capacity to lyse other cultured cancer cells, autologous lymphocytes were found to be unable to lyse their own cultured cancer cells. The defective activity of autologous lymphocytes was restored by preincubation of autologous target cells but not autologous effector cells with the calmodulin inhibitors W-5 or W-7.