An attempt to use the natural binding of bacteria to lymphocytes in examining atopic patients

The termination of different subsets in apparently homogeneous cell population of T lymphocytes seems to be extremely important in the investigation of allergic diseases and can be of diagnostical use. It has been proved that the dysfunction of those subsets is very important pathogenetic mechanism of atopy. The existing technique using monoclonal antibodies to cell surface markers is rather expensive and has even some disadvantages. It has been published recently that some strains of bacteria were capable to bind spontaneously to human lymphocytes. Simultaneous use of more bacterial strains permitted to identify two B-cells and four T-cells subsets. The interaction of lectins on the lymphocyte surface and polysaccharide substances of the bacterial cell wall is supposed to be the mechanism of binding. In the present study an attempt was made to find out whether there is a difference in the binding of bacteria to lymphocytes between normal subjects and atopics and whether changes occur in this phenomenon after application of immunotherapy. It has been found that this qualitatively novel way of binding cannot be used for laboratory characterization of atopic subjects. No differences were observed in T-lymphocyte subsets identified by bacterial adherence between allergic and normal subjects. Immunotherapy failed to influence the binding. No correlation has been found with the method using monoclonal antibodies. Statistical evaluation revealed considerable dispersion of results obtained.