Studies on stimulation of cell-mediated cytotoxicity by skin test antigens. I. Candida antigen stimulation of cell-mediated cytotoxicity in vitro correlated with the skin test response to candida antigen in vivo.

The magnitude of the skin test response in a group of normal volunteers to intradermal Candida antigen correlated closely with the level of cytolytic activity stimulated by Candida antigen in vitro in the peripheral blood lymphocytes from those same individuals. The cytolytic activity stimulated by Candida antigen was cell mediated, and cold target inhibition studies demonstrated that Candida antigen-stimulated effector cells were capable of cross-species (i.e., nonspecific) killing. Analysis of the Candida antigen-induced effector cell population for various cell markers did not enable absolute identification of the cell responsible for the killing. The findings in this study indicate that the stimulation of cell-mediated cytolysis by Candida antigen may be related to the delayed-type hypersensitivity response produced by the same antigen.