Modulation of human rheumatoid factor-specific lymphocyte responses with a cross-reactive anti-idiotype bearing the internal image of antigen.

Rabbit anti-idiotypic antibodies to human rheumatoid factor (RF) autoantibodies were isolated by affinity chromatography on rabbit anti-human IgG Fc Sepharose 4B. The anti-idiotypic antibodies bore the "internal image" of the antigen, human IgG. They reacted specifically with multiple human monoclonal and polyclonal IgM-RF, independent of any particular light or heavy chain amino acid sequence. The anti-idiotypes did not react with IgM or IgG proteins lacking RF activity. The present experiments determined the potential of the "internal image" antibodies to modulate in vitro lymphocyte functions. The addition of anti-idiotypic antibody to peripheral blood mononuclear cell cultures from patients with rheumatoid arthritis elicited lymphocyte proliferation, but not RF synthesis. The antibody did not induce the proliferation of lymphocytes from a normal individual. Moreover, the anti-idiotype specifically suppressed IgM-RF secretory responses when preincubated with B cells before co-culture with autologous pokeweed mitogen-activated T cells. The data show that the anti-idiotypic antibodies with the "internal image" of antigen are capable of interacting with B cell receptors in an antigen-restricted manner, and possess specific immunomodulatory properties.