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Utilizing fluorescein-conjugated monoclonal antibodies and flow cytometry, lymphocyte subsets in cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) and blood from 25 active neurologic disease patients, and in blood from 21 healthy donors were evaluated. CSF showed increased percentages of the T-helper/inducer (TH) and decreased percentages of the T suppressor/cytotoxic (TSC) subsets, as well as increased ratios of TH/TSC compared with paired or normal blood values. CSFs with increased cell counts had significantly higher levels of T total and TH subsets than those with baseline counts, but no differences were observed in levels of TSC or HLA-DR (+) subsets. Of particular significance, both the CSF and blood of neurologic disease patients (but not blood of healthy donors) demonstrated increased TH/TSC ratios as the % of total T-cells increased. The increase in total T cells was due almost entirely to increases in the TH subset, while the TSC subset remained nearly constant. Taken together these data suggest that increased levels of the TH subset in neurologic disease patients anticipates a selective migration of these cells into the CSF, resulting in altered TH/TSC ratios and escape from regulation by T-suppressor cells.

The purpose of the present study was to compare the ability of peripheral blood leukocytes (PBLs) of MS patients and of normal donors to respond to well-characterized inducers of HuIFN-α and HuIFN-γ. Both the production of interferons and the enhancement of NK activity were used as parameters of the response. A possible association of the responses with the DR2 HLA phenotype was examined by stratification of both patients and donors in DR2 + and DR2 -. The results of this study will be published in extenso elsewhere (J. Neurol. Sci., (1983), 60, 137–150).

Several clinical trials with transfer factor (TF)1–3 carried out in the 1970s, showed no beneficial effect on multiple sclerosis (MS) patients.

The association of multiple sclerosis (MS) with HLA-A3, B7 and DR2 is well established in most northern European populations suggesting the existence of an MS susceptibility locus closely linked to HLA. The demonstration of a negative association has been more problematic due to compensatory decreases in frequencies of antigens other than DR2 and antigens in linkage disequilibrium. Attempts have also been made to correlate HLA antigens and clinical characteristics including type of disease course and rate of progression (Madigand et al. 1982, Meyer-Rienecker et al. 1982).