BACKGROUND:More than 900 hemoglobin (Hb) variants are currently known. Common techniques used in Hb analysis are electrophoretic and chromatographic assays. In our laboratory, we routinely apply chromatographic methods. To ascertain whether Hb variants are missed with our procedures, we additionally analyzed all samples with mass spectrometry (MS).

Capillary isoelectric focusing (CIEF) with electro-osmotic zone displacement of normal and pathological hemoglobins (Hb) is reported. CIEF is performed in untreated, open-tubular, fused-silica capillaries of 75 microns internal diameter using methylcellulose for dynamic column conditioning. After direct injection of hemolysates mixed with carrier ampholytes, high resolution separation of Hb variants, including Hb A1c, A, F, D, S, E and A2, is obtained, this permitting unambiguous characterization of Hb patterns of normal adults, newborns, patients with diabetes, different hemoglobinopathies and thalassemia syndromes. Qualitatively, the CIEF data compare well with those obtained by gel isoelectric focusing and high-performance liquid chromatography. CIEF is demonstrated to be a simple, rapid and fully instrumental approach to Hb analysis. Run times of less than 20 min make CIEF an attractive method for routine Hb investigations and screening programs.

B and T lymphocytes with reactivity against major histocompatibility antigens are known to express this immune potential via a display on the outer surface of antigen-specific, idiotypic receptors. Here, we show that anti-idiotypic antibodies directed against such receptors may serve as specific triggering agents of the idiotype-positive lymphocytes in the physical absence of foreign histocompatibility antigens. This was shown in vitro using normal or immune spleen T cells where anti-idiotypic antibodies would lead to the selective proliferation and development of antigen-specific cytolytic T cells as determined by short-time 51Cr release assays. Furthermore, purified anti-idiotypic antibodies in adjuvant administered in vivo to normal syngeneic animals could be shown to lead to production of high titers of specific alloantibodies. The present experiments were in most cases carried out using auto-anti-idiotypic antibodies as triggering agents. The present results thus lend further support to the concept that idiotype-anti-idiotype reactions may be normal parts of conventional immune processes with either stimulatory or inhibitory consequences, depending upon the prevailing conditions.

Killer T cells with specificity for major histocompatibility antigens have been shown in mice and rats to display idiotypic receptors allowing the lysis of such cells at the effector phase by anti-idiotypic antibodies and complement. A comparison was made between idiotypes displayed by Lyt-1-2+3+ and Lyt-1+2-3- T blasts, generated in the same mixed leucocyte culture (MLC), across an entire H-2 locus barrier. This was done by absorption of anti-idiotypic antibodies with respective T blasts, followed by estimation of the ability of the absorbed antiserum to inhibit MLC or killer T-cell function. Further, the capacity of Lyt-purified, MLC-generated T blasts to provoke specific unresponsiveness via anti-idiotypic immunity in syngeneic recipients was analyzed. Taken together, the results demonstrate that Lyt-1+2-3- T blasts responsible for the major part of MLC proliferation have distincly different idiotypes from those on the Lyt 1-2+3+ killer T cells. That the idiotypes on the killer T-cell presursors can serve as triggering sites for induction of effector T-cell function was then suggested by experiments with Lyt-1-2+3+-purified, normal T cells as precursor cells in vitro. The fact that autoanti-idiotypic antibodies may circumvent the need for helper Lyt-1+2-3- T cells in the generation of allospecific killer T cells indicates that the former cells may normally function partly via such anti-idiotypic reactions.