Studies on the influence of cysteine derivatives on the cell-mediated immunity.

The study concerns the effect of cysteine derivatives and its hydrazides on cell mediated immunity. Cysteine derivatives appeared to exert marked suppressive influence on development and course of post-adjuvant polyarthritis in rats. L-cysteine hydrazides prolonged skin allograft survival time in rats to higher degree than cysteine. The results of in vitro experiments point to the inhibition of the non-stimulated and stimulated PHA incorporation of 3H-thymidine by lymphocytes. It was observed that cysteine derivatives examined, and mainly its hydrazides, exert stronger than cysteine suppressive effect on cell mediated immune response.