Analysis of lymphocytes in, and host environment of, mice showing conditioned immunosuppression to cyclophosphamide.

Mice were subjected to repeated exposures to cyclophosphamide: saccharin (conditioned) or cyclophosphamide:saccharin followed by saccharin only (conditioned:extinguished). Animals in the former group but not the latter subsequently showed diminished IgG antibody-forming cells (AFC) after challenge with sheep red blood cells followed by reexposure to immunologically inert cues (saccharin). When these animals were used as irradiated recipients of syngeneic spleen lymphocytes, reconstituted irradiated conditioned mice showed augmented IgG AFC on transfer of naive spleen cells and reexposure to saccharin. The expected diminished IgG AFC response was seen when cells from conditioned mice were transferred. However, the latter cells gave augmented IgG AFC when transferred to naive irradiated mice. Both of the effects seen with cells from conditioned animals (increased IgG AFC in control recipients; decreased IgG AFC in conditioned mice reexposed to saccharin) were regulated by adoptively transferred T cells in the spleen cell population.