Sezary syndrome. I. Specific skin-directed migration of peripheral blood lymphocytes.

The in vitro migration of peripheral blood lymphocytes (PBL) from Sezary syndrome (SS) patients and from controls was studied using a migration assay under agar. Only PBL from SS patients migrate to normal allogeneic skin. This migration is organ specific. It requires the integrity of lymphocyte membrane receptors. Serum factors are not involved. Studies of the nature of these migrating lymphocytes using monoclonal antibodies suggest that they belong to a subset of helper T cells. These data indicate a functional impairment of SS lymphocytes, which enables them to respond to a skin-derived signal.