Adoptive transfer of immunity to Treponema pallidum Nichols infection in inbred strain 2 and C4D guinea pigs.

T lymphocytes purified from lymph nodes and spleens of chancre-immune, inbred strain 2 guinea pigs, when infused into syngeneic guinea pigs, conferred protection against challenge with Treponema pallidum subsp. pallidum Nichols. No protection was conferred by similar injections of cell suspensions from normal guinea pigs or guinea pigs immunized with T. phagedenis biotype Reiter or T. pallidum-free testis supernatants from infected rabbits. Similar results were obtained with homozygous C4D guinea pigs. After several months of infection, 2 of 11 strain 2 and 1 of 8 strain C4D recipients of T. pallidum-immune cells developed an erythematous reaction of short duration at the injection site; 2 of these recipients were positive for T. pallidum. Throughout the experimental period the humoral response to treponemal antigens was substantially lower in the adoptively immune guinea pigs than in various unprotected control groups. Passive immunity to infection with T. pallidum, however, seems to be dose related, since asymptomatic infection persisted for as long as 3 months after challenge in strain 2 guinea pigs transfused with 10(8) T. pallidum-immune lymphocytes, but not in C4D recipients of twice as many immune cells.