Effects of qigong waiqi (emitted qi) on immunocompetent cells: Influence on the function of T lymphocytes and NK-cells

In this study, the effects of waiqi on human lymphocytes and natural killer cells were observed in vitro.

(super 3)H-TdR incorporation was utilized to detect PHA stimulating T lymphocytes proliferation and single direction mixed lymphocytes culture. The CTLL-2 cellular line proliferation was used as the indication system to detect IL-2 production, k(sub 562) cellular line proliferation as the indication system to detect Con-A induced Ts function and (super 3)H-TdR labelling k(sub 562) cells to detect NK cell's activity FACS and OKT(sub 3), OKT(sub 4), OKT(sub 8) monoclone antibodies were used to detect the changes of T subset. It was shown that the waiqi increased the reaction of T lymphocytes to PHA, HLA-D genetic products and increased IL-2 production and NK cells activity, but decreased Con-A induced Ts function, and also influenced the expression, density and affinity of the lymphocyte surface antigens. These results suggested that the waiqi could influence the cellular immunity of human beings.