High spontaneous thymidine incorporation into a non-T lymphocyte population in Hodgkin's disease unmasked after cell fractionation.

In order to study the nature of the spontaneously stimulated cells in Hodgkin's disease, lymphocytes from 10 patients with Hodgkin's disease and 10 healthy control subjects were separated into low- and high-density fractions. Both fractions were subdivided into T and non T cell populations by means of rosette sedimentation. In Hodgkin's disease patients, non-T cells with a high density showed a significantly increased spontaneous thymidine incorporation (mean, 5677 cpm; range, 405--26490 cpm) compared to corresponding cells from control subjects (mean, 484 cpm; range, 235--850 cpm), and to unseparated high-density lymphocytes in Hodgkin's disease patients. Evidence is presented that in Hodgkin's disease, the high-density lymphocyte fraction comprises non-T cells with an apparent potency for DNA synthesis which is, however, inhibited by T cells present in the same high-density fraction.