In Vitro Studies of the Human Response to Organ Allografts: Appearance and Detection of Circulating Activation Lymphocytes

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Abstract
The rate of 3H-thymidine incorporation into circulating peripheral blood lymphocytes was measured immediately after isolation from the blood of 24 organ allograft recipients followed serially, and 42 normal control subjects. The isotope incorporation by 106 cells incubated for 2 hr with 2 µCi of 3H-thymidine was referred to as the activated lymphocyte level. It was 319 ± 295 (mean ± standard deviation) counts per minute (cpm) in the normal controls, 535 ± 377 cpm in the patients prior to grafting, 644 ± 629 cpm after grafting but when the patients had adequate nonfluctuating graft function, and 6744 ± 3798 cpm during active rejection characterized by progressively decreasing graft function. Levels rose an average of 5.4 days prior to clinical signs of rejection and tended to remain high for an average of 10.9 days after rejection was controlled, as characterized by stabilization or improvement in graft function. This outpouring of dividing lymphoblasts was interpreted as the production of effector cells in response to the antigenic stimulus of the graft. Its identification may be useful to predict impending rejection.

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