MONOCLONAL-ANTIBODY STUDIES IN NON-HODGKINS LYMPHOMA

Google Scholar
  • 1 January 1983
    • journal article
    • research article
    • Vol. 61  (3) , 469-475
Abstract
The cell lineage of suspensions prepared from 85 non-Hodgkin''s lymphomas was investigated with a panel of 10 monoclonal antibodies and conventional surface marker techniques. Surface Ig, assessed with specific heteroantisera, proved to be the most useful characteristic and defined the clonal character and B-cell lineage of 63 specimens: almost all nodular lymphocytic (21 of 22) and diffuse lymphocytic (11 of 13) lymphomas, most diffuse histiocytic (29 of 33) and diffuse mixed (2 of 2) lymphomas, and a few nodular mixed (2 of 12) and nodular histiocytic (0 of 3) lymphomas. Monoclonal antibodies provided useful anciliary surface marker criteira. Positivity with OKT1 (which detects both thymic and peripheral T cells) in the absence of reactivity with monoclonal antisera, which detect only peripheral T cells (OKT3, OKT4, OKT8 and OKT11), was seen only in diffuse lymphocytic lymphoma of B lineage, Ia-like antigen could be demonstrated in all B-cell lymphocytic lymphomas and most B-cell histiocytic lymphomas. Approximately one-half of diffuse histiocytic lymphomas also reacted with OKT9, which detects the transferrin receptor, while few lymph nodes involved by other conditions displayed this reactivity. Most diffuse histiocytic lymphomas and many non-Hodgkin''s lymphomas of other subtypes reacted with OKT10, an antiserum that detects an antigen on replicating lymphoid cells. The lineage of approximately 1/4 of the lymphomas suspensions was not resolved conclusively: In most of these, T lymphocytes predominated with a normal proportion of inducer-helper (OKT4) and cytotoxic-suppressor (OKT8) cells. The inability to establish the clonal character of T-cell proliferation in cell suspensions remains an obstacle to completely defining the lineage of non-Hodgkin''s lymphomas.