Effect of Transfer Factor on Lymphocyte Function in Anergic Patients

frozen-thawed peripheral blood leukocytes from a single donor, was given to five anergic patients with chronic mucocutaneous candidiasis. Studies of immunological responses including delayed cutaneous hypersensitivity, in vitro antigen-induced thymidine incorporation, and production of macrophage migration inhibition factor (MIF) were conducted both before and after injection of transfer factor. Before transfer factor, none of the patients had de-layed skin responses to any of the natural antigens stud-ied. Their lymphocytes did not produce MIF after ex-posure to antigens in vitro and only one patient showed increased thymnidine incorporation when his lymphocytes were cultured with candida and streptokinase-streptodor-nase (SK-SD). After injection of transfer factor, four patients developed delayed skin responses to antigens to which the donor was sensitive; no recipient reacted to an antigen to which the donor was nonreactive. Lymphocytes from recipients produced MIF when cul-tured with antigens that evoked positive delayed skin tests. Only one patient developed antigen-induced lympho-cyte transformation and this response occurred only in-termittently. Attempts to sensitize three of the patients with the contact allergen, chlorodinitrobenzene, both be-fore and after transfer factor, were unsuccessful. The fifth patient, a 9-yr old boy with an immunologic profile similar to the Nezelof syndrome, did not become skin test-reactive or develop positive responses to the in vitro tests. These findings suggest that transfer factor acts on the immunocompetent cells that respond to antigens with lymphokine production, but has little, if any, effect on cells that respond to antigens by blastogenesis. The fail-ure to sensitize the subjects with chlorodinitrobenzene Received for publication 31 May 1972 and in revised for