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Lymphocyte suppression in leprosy induced by unique M. leprae glycolipid

Abstract

Leprosy remains a significant medical and social problem in many developing countries. The varied forms of the disease form a spectrum1. At one pole, tuberculoid leprosy, patients develop high levels of cell-mediated immunity which results in the killing and clearing of bacilli in the tissues. At the lepromatous pole, patients exhibit a selective immunological unresponsiveness to antigens of Mycobacterium leprae so that the organisms inexorably multiply in the skin. We have suggested that in lepromatous leprosy one or a small number of unique antigenic determinants present on M. leprae might induce specific suppressor cells that inhibit the reactivity of helper T-cell clones capable of recognizing other specific or cross reactive determinants2. Although unique epitopes have been identified by monoclonal antibodies on a small number of M. leprae proteins3, the only unique species of antigen present in M. leprae, and not on any other species of mycobacteria so far examined, is a phenolic glycolipid (gly-I)4. We show here that this unique antigen of M. leprae is capable of inducing suppression of mitogenic responses of lepromatous patients' lymphocytes in vitro and provide evidence that the suppressor T cells recognize the specific terminal trisaccharide moiety.

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Mehra, V., Brennan, P., Rada, E. et al. Lymphocyte suppression in leprosy induced by unique M. leprae glycolipid. Nature 308, 194–196 (1984). https://doi.org/10.1038/308194a0

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