@article{10711,
  keywords = {Antibodies, Monoclonal, Antigens, Differentiation, T-Lymphocyte, Cells, Cultured, Granuloma, Humans, Immunity, Cellular, Inflammation, Interleukin-2, leprosy, Lymphocyte Activation, Phenotype, T-Lymphocytes},
  author = {Modlin R L and Melancon-Kaplan J and Young S M and Pirmez C and Kino H and Convit J and Rea T H and Bloom B R},
  title = {Learning from lesions: patterns of tissue inflammation in leprosy.},
  abstract = {<p>The clinical forms of leprosy constitute a spectrum that correlates closely with the degree of cell-mediated immunity. Patients with tuberculoid leprosy develop strong cell-mediated responses and have only a few, localized lesions, whereas patients with multibacillary lepromatous leprosy are specifically unresponsive to antigens of Myobacterium leprae. T cells of the CD4+ subset predominate in tuberculoid lesions, whereas CD8+ cells predominate in lepromatous lesions. Monoclonal antibodies that distinguish subpopulations of CD4+ and CD8+ cells were used to analyze the distribution of T cells infiltrating lesions across the disease spectrum. In lepromatous lesions, T cells of T-suppressor phenotype (9.3-) were the predominant CD8+ cells and suppressor/inducer cells (2H4+, Leu-8+) represented half of the CD4+ subset. In tuberculoid lesions, helper T cells (CD4+4B4+) outnumbered suppressor/inducer T cells by 14:1, compared with a ratio of 1.2:1 in peripheral blood. Analysis of the precursor frequency of antigen-reactive T cells permitted us to estimate that there was a 100-fold enrichment of T cells able to proliferate in response to M. leprae antigens in tuberculoid lesions (2/100), when compared with blood from the same patients. The methods used here to characterize the T-lymphocyte subsets and frequency of antigen-reactive T cells in leprosy may be useful in analyzing immunological reactions occurring in lesions of other inflammatory and autoimmune diseases.</p>},
  year = {1988},
  journal = {Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America},
  volume = {85},
  pages = {1213-7},
  month = {1988 Feb},
  issn = {0027-8424},
  url = {http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC279737/pdf/pnas00256-0252.pdf},
  doi = {10.1073/pnas.85.4.1213},
  language = {eng},
}