Immune features in complete Freund adjuvant-treated CBA/J mouse model

Abstract

Immunostimulation with complete Freund adjuvant (CFA) reverses the tendency to fetal loss in the CBA/J x DBA/2J mouse. First attempts to understand the mechanisms underlying this effect were to evaluate phenotypic and functional changes in the lymphocytic cell population after immunopotentiation. We demonstrated that treatment with CFA leads to diminished responses of maternal splenocytes towards paternal alloantigens and this low response cannot be improved with exogenous interleukin-2. Lymphocytes derived from spleen, para-aortic draining lymph nodes and placenta significantly suppress maternal response to paternal antigens. The effect of low fetal resorption rate is followed by marked elevation of asialo GM-1 and HNK-1-positive cells but not followed by any change of the L3T4 or Lyt-2-positive lymphocyte population in either the spleen or in draining lymph nodes. L3T4 and Lyt-2-positive cells have not been found in the placenta. An important feature was marked elevation of Mac-1-positive cells in the placentas of CFA-treated animals. The relevance of these findings to CFA-induced fetal protection is still under investigation.