ANTIBODY PRODUCTION AFTER PARTIAL ADRENALECTOMY IN GUINEA PIGS

Abstract

By careful aseptic operation it was found possible to remove approximately three-quarters to seven-eighths of the adrenal tissue of guinea pigs without causing symptoms of adrenal insufficiency. Guinea pigs were immunized to Bacillus typhosus or to hen corpuscles at varying intervals before or after the operation, and the curves of antibody formation traced for 2 to 3 months after immunization. Comparisons with the antibody curves of control animals similarly immunized fail to show that the adrenalectomy had any influence upon the rise or persistence of antibodies in the blood. For the purposes of the study it was not deemed necessary to produce an acute adrenal insufficiency. If the adrenal glands were the site of antibody formation or played an essential part in immunity processes, it does not seem probable that the small remainder of adrenal tissue left in situ to sustain life would affect quantitatively the antibody response to a given antigen injection as do the entire normal glands. We therefore interpret the experiments to indicate that not only are the adrenal glands not one of the important sources of typhoid agglutinins, or of hemagglutinins or hemolysins, but they play no essential part in the mechanism by which these antibodies are produced and maintained in the body.