Immunologic studies of patients with histoplasmosis

Immunologic responses of patients with active histoplasmosis (Group I) were compared to the responses of healthy persons with positive histoplasmin skin-test reactions (Group II), and to those of healthy persons with negative histoplasmin skin-test reactions (Group III). Cellular immune responses were significantly depressed in patients. Seven (54 per cent) of 13 patients failed to respond to histoplasmin skin testing, and two (15 per cent) failed to respond to skin-test antigens unrelated to Histoplasma capsulatum. Lymphocyte transformation (LT) responses of patients were severely depressed in vitro (p less than 0.001) to Histoplasma antigens when compared to the responses of healthy, histoplasmin-reactive donors. Transformation responses to Candida antigen were not impaired in the patient population. Culturing lymphocytes of patients in serum obtained from healthy donors as opposed to autologous serum resulted in a significant (p less than 0.05) increase in LT responses to H. capsulatum. Responses to Candida antigen and to mitogens were not affected by the serum source. Serum-mediated suppression of LT responses correlated (p less than 0.01) with complement-fixing antibody titers to Histoplasma yeast-phase antigen and suggests that antibody, either alone or complexed with antigen, may suppress T-cell response in vitro in this disease.