Antigen-specific augmentation of delayed-type hypersensitivity by immune serum factor in mice.

The serum from C3H/He mice immunized with chicken erythrocytes (CRBC) in complete Freund's adjuvant contained a factor able to augment delayed-type hypersensitivity (DTH) antigen specifically, when transferred into naive syngeneic recipient mice before their sensitization with CRBC. This activity in immune serum appeared on Day 4 and reached a peak on Day 8 after immunization, and was enhanced when donor mice were treated with cyclophosphamide (CY) 2 days before immunization. The ability of recipient mice to respond to this factor was enhanced by CY treatment of these mice 4 days before being transferred. This factor could be discriminated from conventional antibodies. Production of this factor in the serum donor and the expression of its activity in transferred recipient was mediated by a T-cell subset which showed a low degree of thymus dependency in ontogenic development.