Passive Transfer of Experimental Autoimmune Thyroiditis from Donor Rabbits Injected with Soluble Thyroglobulin without Adjuvant

Abstract

Experimental thyroiditis can be transferred by spleen and lymph node cells to normal rabbits from donors injected with either altered homologous thyroglobulin or aqueous preparations of heterologous thyroglobulin without adjuvant. The transfer of thyroiditis in rabbits was performed under conditions which eliminated transfer of active antigen and the possibility of the active immunization of the recipient animals was ruled out. Thyroid lesions were not seen when non-viable sensitized cells were transferred to normal recipients. Similarly, no thyroid lesions were noted when viable sensitized cells were transferred to X-irradiated recipients. Transfer of sensitized donor cells resulted in immune elimination of I131 native rabbit thyroglobulin in normal and irradiated recipients with the production of antibody to native rabbit thyroglobulin.