Protective Effects of Passively Transferred Immune T - or B-Lymphocytes in Mice Infected with Salmonella typhimuriunl

• Published in: The Journal of infectious diseases Vol. 135; no. 5; pp. 813 - 823
• Main Authors: Hochadel, James F., Keller, Kenneth F.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: The University of Chicago Press 01.05.1977
• ISSN: 0022-1899; 1537-6613
• DOI: 10.1093/infdis/135.5.813

Purified populations of bone marrow-derived (B-) lymphocytes and thymus-derived (T-) lymphocytes were obtained from C3D2Fl hybrid mice shown to be immune to Salmonella typhimurium. These subpopulations of lymphocytes were injected into normal mice; four days later the animals were challenged with 50 50% lethal doses of S. typhimurium, and viable bacteria in livers, spleens, and blood were counted at various intervals after challenge. On day 8 after challenge, the mice supplemented with B-Iymphocytes showed a significant decrease in the number of organisms recovered from all three sites, compared with that seen in recipients of T-Iymphocytes and in controls. The mice given B-Iymphocytes showed a better rate of survival (65%) than mice that received only T-Iymphocytes (21 %) or T-lymphocyte fractions contaminated 10%–30% with B-lymphocytes (49%). These data indicate that, although the humoral response is not totally protective, it does play an important role in the suppression of the infection during its early stages.