OBSERVATIONS ON THE PASSIVE TRANSFER OF TRANSPLANTATION IMMUNITY AND DELAYED HYPERSENSITIVITY WITH LYMPHOID CELLS IN MILLIPORE CHAMBERS*†

Abstract

Experiments were done to determine if antigen or a transfer factor escaped from millipore chambers containing viable cells with subsequent immunization of the recipient mice. Homologous nonsensitized and isologous sensitized lymphoid cells enclosed in millipore chambers were transferred to recipient mice. After appropriate time intervals, the hosts were tested by skin homografts. There was no evidence that recipients were immunized by an escape from the chambers of homologous cells, of antigen carried over with sensitized cells, or of a transfer factor. In mice given 650 r total body irradiation, a dose sufficient to prolong the MST of first-set grafts by 6 days, accelerated rejection of test skin homografts was achieved by lymphoid cells sensitized to homologous tissues and enclosed in millipore chambers. That leakage of cells might occur, but in numbers too small to effect immunization of the host, was indicated by the deaths of 5 of 53 recipients of virulent leukemia cells placed in chambers. In guinea pigs, tuberculin and contact chemical sensitivity could not be transferred by cells sensitized to tubercle bacilli or dinitrofluorobenzene and contained in cell-impenetrable millipore chambers. These data corroborated the conclusion that transplantation immunity on the one hand and tuberculin and contact sensitivity on the other hand are mediated by different immunologic mechanisms.