Rabbit Blood Lymphocytes May Be T Cells with Surface Immunoglobulins

Abstract

Rabbit peripheral blood lymphocytes and thymus cells do not respond to lipopolysaccharide mitogen in vitro, whereas spleen cells do. Soluble concanavalin A consistently stimulates 80 to 90 percent of rabbit peripheral blood lymphocytes, and the morphologic changes associated with such transformation may be observed within 18 hours after stimulation. Approximately 80 percent of rabbit peripheral blood lymphocytes have demonstrable immunoglobulin markers. These and other observations suggest that most rabbit peripheral blood lymphocytes are T cells with surface immunoglobulins.