Characterization of lymphokine-activated killer cells from peripheral blood and lymph nodes of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma patients.

Peripheral blood lymphocytes (PBL) and lymph node lymphocytes (LNL) from non-Hodgkin's lymphoma patients were tested for LAK cell cytotoxicity using appropriate targets in a short-term 51chromium-release assay. The results showed a significant depression in LNL-LAK activity suggesting the reduced capacity of LNL to generate LAK cells. LNL-LAK cells demonstrated significantly low percentages of cells expressing CD16, CD56 and CD25 as compared to PBL-LAK of patients and healthy donors. The reduced capacity to generate LAK cells in lymph nodes could be due to the presence of low numbers of NK cells which are thought to be the main precursors of LAK cells. The IL-2 producing ability of lymph node mononuclear cells was found to be significantly higher than that of peripheral blood mononuclear cells from both healthy donors and NHL patients.