Studies on the immune response in chickens. III. Effect of substitution of carrier on elicitation of anti-hapten antibody responses and generation of hapten-specific memory.

The role of carrier in both elicitation of anti-hapten antibody responses and generation of hapten-specific memory in chickens were studied using dinitrophenyl (DNP) conjugate of T-independent antigen carrier (DNP--Ficoll), that of isologous serum protein DNP--chicken serum albumin (CSA), and heavily conjugated DNP--bovine gammaglobulin (BGG). All of these DNP--conjugates could generate DNP specific memory as markedly as moderately conjugated DNP--BGG. Both DNP--Ficoll and DNP--CSA hardly elicited the primary and secondary anti-DNP antibody responses. Heavily conjugated DNP--BGG did not elicit a significant primary anti-DNP response as moderately conjugated DNP--BGG. It is suggested therefore that, when chickens are stimulated with hapten-carrier conjugates, hapten-specific memory is generated independently of T-cell function, but the elicitation of both the primary and secondary anti-hapten antibody responses is somehow relevant to T-cell function, although the T-cell dependence is less marked in the secondary than in the primary response.