Lymphoproliferative responses to human papillomaviruses in patients with cutaneous warts

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Abstract
In vitro lymphoproliferative responses of peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC) from patients with cutaneous warts, caused by infection with human papillomavirus type 1 (HPV-1) or type 2 (HPV-2), were assayed during the course of treatment. Purified HPV-1 and HPV-2 were used as antigens, as well as herpes simplex virus (HSV) and concanavalin A (Con A). All patients had normal percentages of subsets within the PBMC population and normal lymphoproliferative responses to Con A, and those with a clinical history of HSV infections had positive lymphoproliferative responses to HSV. Responses to both HPV antigens were poor. Only 10 of 100 assays of PBMC from 26 patients showed a stimulation index greater than 2. Addition of interleukin 2 made little difference in most cases. No correlation of clinical status of warts, i.e. improving, unchanged or resolved, with lymphoproliferation was found. When the PBMC were depleted of plastic-adherent cells and enriched for T cells, some samples which had not shown a lymphoproliferative response to HPV-1 or HPV-2 became positive; this response was abolished when the adherent cells were re-added. Thus it is possible that the adherent cell population from a proportion of patients contains cells which suppress lymphoproliferation, or that an immunoregulatory network is present so that lymphoproliferation does not take place in vitro without prior activation and cloning of T cells.