Correlations Between Serum Immunoglobulin Concentrations and Immunoglobulin Secreting Cells in Healthy Peripheral Blood

Abstract

In this study, to assess the ability of immunoglobulin productions at a certain point in vivo, the numbers of immunoglobulin secreting cells in noncultured peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs), B-cell populations, or T-cell populations were enumerated. As a result, the numbers of immunoglobulin-secreting cells in B-cell populations were three to five times of those in PBMCs, suggesting that in this assay T cells are not necessary in vitro for the immunoglobulin secretion from secreting cells since B cells may have received factors (lymphokines) from T cells in vivo. Moreover, in healthy individuals, the numbers of immunoglobulin-secreting cells in PBMCs were well correlated to serum immunoglobulin concentrations in all three classes. The results suggest that measurement of immunoglobulin secreting cells in PBMCs are useful for assessment of the ability of immunoglobulin productions at a certain point in vivo.