Salmonella typhimurium infection in calves: delayed specific skin reactions directed against the O-antigenic polysaccharide chain.

Specific delayed skin reactions developed after intradermal injection of Salmonella typhimurium lipopolysaccharide in 12-week-old calves which had been orally infected with S. typhimurium 5 weeks earlier. Uninfected calves showed no delayed skin reactions. Skin biopsies from skin swellings showed a massive infiltration of mononuclear cells in the skin of infected calves but not in those of uninfected calves. Persistence of infection in infected calves was confirmed by isolation of S. typhimurium from fecal specimens. The delayed skin reactions could be shown to be specific and directed against the O-polysaccharide chain of the lipopolysaccharide since none of the lipopolysaccharide chain of the lipopolysaccharide since none of the lipopolysaccharide preparations from a rough mutant of S. typhimurium, two strains with different O-polysaccharide chains, or lipid A elicited skin reactivity. To cause a reaction, the O-polysaccharide had to be in a macromolecular complex, since skin swellings were seen only after injections of either O-polysaccharide chains cross-linked by 1,2,3,4-diepoxybutane or octasaccharides from the O chain covalently linked to a straight 12-carbon aliphatic chain forming an artificial glycolipid. Injection of the pure octasaccharides of O-polysaccharide chains failed to elicit delayed skin reactions.