Passive transfer of unresponsiveness by lymph node cells. Studies on adjuvant disease.

Pretreatment of rats with subarthritogenic doses of mycobacterial adjuvant suppresses the arthritogenic reaction induced by this adjuvant. This unresponsiveness can betransferred to normal syngeneic recipients by viable lymph node cells from unresponsivedonors. Serum from the same donors did not prevent the arthritis. Abrogation ofunresponsiveness was obtained by injecting normal lymph node cells together with the challeging inoculation and also with sensitized lymphoid cells. In agreement with the concept of tolerance as an active immune reaction, the data suggest that in this experimental model lymphoid cells actively suppress the immune response induced by microbacterial adjuvant. Thus, arthritis or unresponsiveness may result from the predominance of either sensitized or suppressor cells.