Huntington's disease: delayed hypersensitivity in vitro to human central nervous system antigens.

Huntington's disease is a hereditary, chronic, degenerative disease of the brain which is transmitted by an autosomal dominant gene. We have discovered that lymphocytes from patients with Huntington's disease respond to the presence of brain tissue from patients with the disease by producing migration inhibition factor, a correlate of the cellular immune response. Lymphocytes from donors without the disease do not respond to the diseased brain tissue, and lymphocytes from patients with Huntington's disease respond only rarely to brain tissue from donors without the disease.