Specificity of basophils and lymphocytes in cutaneous basophil hypersensitivity.

Using a rosetting technique, it was found that the vast majority of basophils circulating in the blood or accumulating in the skin reactions of guinea pigs primed for cutaneous basophil hypersensitivity (CBH) lacked demonstrable specificity for sensitizing antigen, whether sheep erythrocytes, a soluble protein, or tumor cells. By contrast, one-third of cells teased from late skin reactions formed specific rosettes as did nearly 80% of circulating basophils in animals receiving repeated doses of whole sheep blood. Unreactive basophils teased from CBH reactions readily acquired rosetting capacity on exposure to immune serum. With regard to lymphocyte (and hence reaction) specificity, both CBH and classic delayed hypersensitivity (DH) reactions exhibited a high degree of carrier specificity when dinitrophenyl-conjugates were used. Thus, in the hapten-carrier combinations examined thus far, the antigen skin test requirements for both CBH and DH have been identical and are those required for inducing an active lymphocyte response. These findings indicate that control mechanisms other than homocytotropic antibodies must be sought to explain the accumulation and behavior of basophils in CBH reactions and, coupled with other data, suggest that lymphocytes and/or their products are likely candidates for this role.