Distribution of immunoglobulin heavy chains in diseased synovia.

Synovium from 142 patients with 12 different arthropathies was examined for the distribution of alpha, delta, gamma, and mu immunoglobulin heavy chains. A high proportion of plasma cells in the superficial subintima in all diseases reacted for alpha heavy chains. Only in rheumatoid disease did the synovium contain more than 10% of plasma cells reacting for mu heavy chains.