Viral Inhibition of the Phytohemagglutinin Response of Human Lymphocytes and Application to Viral Hepatitis

Abstract

The PHA-stimulated leukocyte cultures from healthy donors were inoculated with representatives from picornavirus, picodnavirus, arbovirus, myxovirus, paramyxovirus, rhabdovirus, reovirus, adenovirus and papovavirus groups. Cultures were harvested after 6 days of incubation and assayed for virus multiplication and for DNA synthesis of the leukocytes by uptake of thymidine-³H. Virus replication and inhibition of the PHA response of the lymphocytes by these viruses were limited primarily to viruses which replicated and assembled in the cytoplasm of the cell. Leukocytes from 15 patients with viral hepatitis were studied, and in 8 of them the cells were hyporesponsive to PHA stimulation after 3 days of incubation. This pattern was observed in all samples taken within the first week after onset of jaundice. Sera from patients with viral hepatitis when added to normal leukocyte cultures showed some inhibition of the PHA response, but the effect could not be serially passed to fresh cultures. The same pattern was obtained with human wart virus preparations. Leukocytes cultured from patients with Hodgkin's disease and with chronic lymphocytic leukemia were also hyporesponsive to PHA stimulation, but again the inhibitory effect was not transmissible to normal leukocyte cultures.