A COMPARISON OF EPSTEIN‐BARR VIRUS‐SPECIFIC T‐CELL IMMUNITY IN RHEUMATOID ARTHRITIS AND OSTEOARTHRITIS PATIENTS

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Abstract
The level of Epstein-Barr virus (EBV)-specific T-cell-mediated immunity in 20 rheumatoid arthritis (RA) patients was compared with 16 age-and sex-matched osteoarthritis (OA) patients using the regression of EBV-transformation assay. The results show that the level of EBV-specific T-cell immunity in RA patients is significantly depressed compared with OA patients (P<.001) or healthy laboratory controls (P<.001). In contrast, lymphocytes from RA and OA patients showed a similar ability to act as a responder population in the mixed leucocyte reaction. It is unlikely that the difference in EBV-specific immunity is due to a general T-cell defect in RA patients since there was no correlation between EBV-specific T-cell immunity and mixed leucocyte reactivity. There was no correlation between EBV-specific T-cell immunity and any of the indicators of disease activity nor was there any difference in the anti-EBV antibody titre between both groups of patients. These results indicate that RA patients are deficient in the EBV-specific cytotoxic T-cell precursor population and may explain some of the reported observations of the involvement of EBV in this disease.

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