Receptor Sites for Aggregated Gammaglobulin (AGG) on Lymphocytes in Lymphoproliferative Diseases

Abstract

S ummary . Receptor sites for AGG were evaluated autoradiographically after incubation of blood or lymph node lymphocytes with 125 I‐labelled proteins. 18 patients with chronic lymphocytic leukaemia, 17 with non‐Hodgkin lymphoma and 27 healthy controls were investigated. In the normal controls an average of 15% of blood lymphocytes were labelled. In patients with chronic lymphocytic leukaemia 16 of 18 patients showed a marked increase of lymphocytes with this receptor. In non‐Hodgkin lymphomas high numbers of lymphocytes reacting with AGG were found in biopsies of pathological lymph nodes, but rarely observed in the peripheral blood. Further support for the B‐cell nature of these lymphocytes was obtained in experiments with anti‐Ig‐antisera and differential centrifugation after rosette formation with unsensitized sheep red blood cells.