Antinuclear antibodies in mice. II. Transmission with spleen cells; inhibition or prevention with thymus or spleen cells

Abstract

Seven-week-old and 16-week-old A/Jax mice were injected with viable spleen cells or homogenates of spleen cells obtained from older syngeneic mice which either had autoimmune anti-deoxyribonucleoprotein (DNP) antibody in their sera or lacked this activity. None of the 7-week-old recipients developed detectable anti-DNP antibody. However, most of the animals in the 16-week-old group developed this autoantibody. The viability of the cells and the presence of or absence of anti-DNP antibody in the donor's sera did not appear to influence the autoimmune response of these recipients. When viable thymus cells which were obtained from young A/Jax mice were transferred to groups of older syngeneic animals that had developed anti-DNP antibody spontaneously, the anti-DNP decreased or disappeared from the sera of most recipients. Untreated controls did not show this variation. When 36-week-old A/Jax mice which lacked anti-DNP antibody were injected with thymus or spleen cells obtained from young donors, none of the recipients or untreated controls developed anti-DNP antibody. After specific immunization with DNP, however, the control animals began to produce autoimmune anti-DNP antibody while the animals treated with thymus or spleen cells remained unresponsive. These observations support the hypothesis that in A/Jax mice: (1) autoimmunity to DNP may result from failure of normal homeostasis mechanisms which allow proliferation of autoimmune cells; (2) the number of cells with autoimmune potential may increase during ageing; (3) the efficiency of the homeostasis system may decrease during ageing as the result of microbial or genetic factors; and (4) cells which participate in homeostasis are found in the thymus and spleen of young mice and may be the thymus dependent lymphocytes.