STUDIES ON THE TRANSFER OF LYMPH NODE CELLS

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Abstract
The transfer to rabbits of homologous lymph node cells incubated in vitro with Shigella-trypsin filtrate leads to the appearance of agglutinins to Shigella in the sera of the recipients. The prior injection of prospective recipients with blood leukocytes from the donor animals prevented the appearance of anti-Shigella agglutinins. The degree of the pre-injection effect was found to be a function of the number of leukocytes injected and of the interval between such pre-injection and the transfer of the antigen-incubated lymph node cells. Blood leukocytes, lymph node cells, peritoneal exudate cells, or thymus cells of rabbits were effective in bringing about the pre-injection effect, but not erythrocytes of rabbit or leukocytes of cow, chicken or horse. The pre-injection effect was obtained regularly when leukocytes and lymph node cells (for transfer) were pooled from the same donor rabbits, when leukocytes were pooled from one group of rabbits and lymph node cells from another, and sporadically when leukocytes were obtained from an individual rabbit and lymph node cells from another. The pre-injection of a recipient with its own leukocytes had almost no effect on the subsequent agglutinin titer. Leukocytes subjected to a variety of treatments before injection into the recipients did not bring about suppression of antibody production. Only sonic oscillation and X-irradiation (among the treatments employed) did not impair the ability of the leukocytes to bring about the pre-injection effect. The pre-injection of leukocytes at appropriate intervals could also cause the failure of antibody to appear in sera of recipients of lymph node cells when these were obtained from donor rabbits injected with Shigella, 1, 2 or 3 days prior to cell transfer.