Influence of Antigen Dosage on Kinetics of Hemagglutinating Antibody Production

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Abstract
Summary: We have studied the effects of antigen dosage upon the kinetics of hemagglutinating antibody production by both primed and nonprimed spleen cells. For these studies the method of in vivo culture of spleen cells was employed, thus avoiding many of the complicating factors which have attended previous studies in intact animals. A broad range in both competent spleen cells and antigen dosage (rat erythrocytes) was examined. Antibody response was characterized by regions of antigen insufficiency, optimum antigen and antigen excess. Detailed response profiles indicated that the slopes of the logarithmic phase of antibody production were independent of antigen dosage and characterized by antibody-doubling times of about 8 hr, a figure which is consistent with the known cell cycle time of 9 hr of blast cells involved in antibody response. Thus, marked variation in either the cell cycle time or the amount of antibody produced per functional cell per cell cycle during a given response appeared not to occur with variation in antigenic stimulus. The variable factors which seem most likely to be affected by antigen dosage were concluded to be: a) variation in the number of activated progenitor cells, b) variation in the number of functional progeny generated by progenitor cells, and c) variation in the initial, but subsequently constant, amount of antibody produced per functional cell per cell cycle. It was further concluded that variation in antigen dosage is not simply all-or-none activation of progenitor cells.

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