Experimental allergic encephalomyelitis: clinical disease and enhanced cellular transfer in the absence of lymphocyte proliferative responses against syngeneic MBP.

Experimental allergic encephalomyelitis (EAE) was induced in Lewis rats using several different immunization protocols, and draining lymph node cells from these animals were assayed for proliferation against heterologous, homologous, and syngeneic MBP, and syngeneic spinal cord. Proliferative responses were largely stimulated by nonsyngeneic antigenic determinants and correlated better with the antigen used to induce EAE than with signs of autoimmune disease. Lymph node cells from rats immunized with either guinea pig spinal cord or syngeneic MBP did not proliferate measurably when restimulated in vitro with syngeneic MBP, yet lymphoid cells from these animals were enhanced in their capacity to transfer EAE following in vitro stimulation with syngeneic MBP.