Responses of the reticuloendothelial system of the rabbit to intraocular injections of foreign protein

Immunological concepts and the eye: a review of the classical and ocular arthus reactions

Inflammatory processes can involve any tissue in the eye. Despite advances in therapy, the sequelae of inflammation continue to be a major cause of visual impairment. Knowledge of disease pathogenesis in clinical ocular inflammations remains imprecise, and defined models are crucial in developing this understanding and evolving rational approaches to treatment. This review analyzes the contributions that studies of the classical and Arthus ocular Arthus-type reactions have made as to how the eye functions as an immunological entity. The anticipated development of therapeutic agents that may modulate immune processes with remarkable specificity, gives a new impetus to such experimental studies.

Membrane and transformation characteristics of lymphocytes isolated from the synovial membrane and paired peripheral blood of patients with rheumatoid arthritis

Membrane and transformation characteristics of lymphocytes isolated from the synovial membrane and from paired peripheral blood samples, obtained from patients with classical rheumatoid arthritis, were studied. Synovial tissue lymphocytes were isolated by a new technique. Two suspensions of peripheral blood lymphocytes were studied: one isolated by Ficoll-Isopaque density gradient centrifugation, the other enriched in T cells by an additional step of 1 hour nylon wool column filtration. All suspensions were characterised by the percentages of mononuclear phagocytic cells, and T and B lymphocytes. The spontaneous (3)H-thymidine uptake of synovial tissue lymphocyte suspensions always exceeded that of the peripheral blood lymphocyte suspensions. The in-vitro responsiveness of synovial tissue lymphocytes to PHA, Con-A, and PWM, as measured by (3)H-thymidine uptake, was always consistently lower than that of paired peripheral blood lymphocytes whether or not enriched in T cells. The responsiveness to antigens, including PPD, varidase, and an antigen cocktail consisting of varidase, trychophyton, and Staphylococcus aureus antigen, showed the same effect. No dissociation was found between the response to PPD and the other antigens studied. These results suggest that the relative unresponsiveness to mitogens and antigens of synovial tissue lymphocytes in comparison with blood lymphocytes is not caused by mononuclear phagocyte contamination, but either by different subsets of T lymphocytes or by different functional states of T lymphocytes present in the synovial membrane and peripheral blood of patients with rheumatoid arthritis.