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Circulating tissue antigens (CTA) were investigated in 143 patients with disorders involving injury of the liver and of other organs and in forty-eight normal subjects by immunodiffusion techniques using rabbit anti-human liver serum containing antibodies to a liver-specific antigen and to tissue antigens of wide organ distribution. Analysis of serum samples by double immunodiffusion showed up to three CTA in the following cases: fifteen out of eighteen, viral hepatitis (VH), two out of thirteen, other infectious diseases, two out of ten, alcoholic cirrhosis, seven out of twenty-one, congestive heart failure (CHF), four out of fourteen, myocardial infarction, ten out of twenty-one, trauma, two out of thirteen, carcinoma and three out of thirty-three, miscellaneous diseases. Forty-eight normal subjects showed no CTA. Immunoelectrophoresis of most of the positive eases showed two to three CTA, while a few cases showed four to six. Absorption tests with organ extracts demonstrated that in most patients, CTA were substances shared by several organs. However, in two cases of VH, in two cases of CHF with liver necrosis and in two cases of trauma to the liver, one of the CTA was shown to be liver specific. The CTA were susceptible to digestion by pronase and were found to be relatively thermolabile. Positive sera showed higher glutamic oxaloacetic transaminase and lactic dehydrogenase activities than the negative sera. These preliminary data suggest that further investigation on CTA in disease involving tissue injury and necrosis may be rewarding. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Blood lymphocytes from Malay, Indian and Chinese patients with leprosy, and from race-matched controls, were cultured in the presence of phytohaemagglutinin. Cells from Malays and Indians with lepromatous leprosy and from Malays with tuberculoid leprosy transformed as well as cells from normal controls when cultured in normal (reference) serum. Cells from lepromatous Malays and Indians transformed significantly less well than cells from normal controls when cultured in autologous serum. Normal lymphocytes transformed significantly less well when cultured in serum from lepromatous or tuberculoid Malays or from lepromatous Indians than when cultured in serum from normal controls. Lymphocytes from lepromatous Chinese transformed significantly more extensively than those from normal Chinese, whether cultured in normal (reference) or autologous serum. The ratio of transformation in autologous serum to transformation in reference serum was significantly depressed for lepromatous Chinese. Although lepromatous Chinese serum, compared with normal Chinese serum, did not depress the response of lymphocytes from one donor, there was evidence of depression when cells from another donor were used. Cells and sera from Chinese patients biopsied for suspected nasopharyngeal carcinoma behaved similarly to those from lepromatous Chinese, and not to those of normal Chinese, whether or not nasopharyngeal carcinoma was found. Lymphocytes from patients with disease classified as stable, regardless of other criteria, transformed significantly less well in either normal or autologous serum than did cells from patients with downgrading (rapidly progressive) disease. This was true of all races. In the case of Malays and Indians with stable disease the cells also transformed less well than normal cells in reference serum. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]