FURTHER EVALUATION OF AUTOREACTIVE T-CELLS IN HYDATID PATIENTS

We evaluated the peripheral autoreactive response in patients with Ech inococcus granulosus who showed a negative humoral response as compare d to seropositive patients and healthy controls. For this purpose, a l imiting dilution analysis (LDA) of autologous mixed lymphocyte culture s was established to both estimate frequency of autoreactive T cells a nd, by analysing the shape of the curves, to clarify the mechanisms th at underlie the autoreactive response. Different LDA curves were obser ved between healthy controls and patients, suggesting that different c ell interactions are involved in the two populations. More interesting ly, all hydatid patients, independent of their humoral response, showe d a higher number of autoreactive T cells than controls. Precisely, su bjects with a negative humoral response showed a range of values for a utoreactive T cells exactly between the value ranges observed in serop ositive and normal subjects. The present data also show that the incre ase of autoreactive T cells in hydatid patients correlates with the pr oduction of specific antibodies.