ABSTRACT
Autoimmunity itself likely represents a very broad cross section of medicine. All types of immune damage can be involved in autoimmunity; that is, direct cytotoxic antibody, immune complexes, and cell-mediated autoimmunity. Autoimmunity under certain circumstances can be normal, an epiphenomenon of no apparent clinical significance, or pathologic. Immunity against tumors may be considered a normal or a central component of autoimmunity inasmuch as it involves an immune reaction against tissue of self-origin. It is important to consider the type of autoimmunity presumably involved in an individual disease under consideration before considering what type of suppressor function might be appropriate to measure. Suppressor cells generally appear to act through a two-step mechanism, that is, a T cell which acts as an inducer and another which acts as an effector. Antibodies are produced by plasma cells, the terminal product of differentiation by B lymphocytes.
