[Effect of plasma from normal individuals and lymphoma patients on immune function]

The effect of plasma from 21 normal donors, 19 patients with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma and 11 patients with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) on interleukin 2 (IL-2) responsiveness, T cell proliferation and natural killer (NK) cell activity was studied. IL-2 responsiveness was enhanced by plasma from both normal and patients. The positive rate was 90.4% in normal, 89.5% in lymphoma and 90.9% in SLE, respectively. The same enhancing results were obtained in T cell proliferative assay. In contrast, effect of three kinds of plasma on NK cell activity showed inhibition. The inhibitory positive rate was 52.4% in normal, 36.8% in lymphoma and 81.8% in SLE, respectively. These results indicated that both enhancing and inhibitory effects on different immune functions showed certain specificity. The effect of plasmic substances on various immune responses is beneficial to the investigation of normal and abnormal immunoregulation. Furthermore, it is possible to isolate and purify these immunoregulatory substances as biological regulatory modifiers to modulate the abnormal immune functions.