Immune status in healthy relatives of patients with familial Crohn's disease

Immune-mediated mechanisms and genetic factors are believed to be involved in the pathogenesis of Crohn's disease. We studied T- and B-cell subpopulation proportions and various functional assays, including proliferative responses to PHA and Con A, Con A-induced suppressive activity, and natural killer cell assay toward the K562 cell line, in the peripheral blood of 22 patients with inactive familial Crohn's disease and their 35 healthy relatives including nine families. HLA-A, -B, and -DR antigens were determined in all the subjects. With the exception of minor abnormalities of suppressor cell activity present in some relatives of two families, neither significant impairments of immunological parameters in patients or their relatives nor concordant segregation of HLA haplotypes and disease were observed. These data indicate that peripheral immune abnormalities previously described in patients with Crohn's disease do not constitute primary factors involved in the disease itself and that familial incidence in Crohn's disease cannot be linked to immunological markers presently studied.