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Mitogenicity of Bacterial Endotoxins: Characterization of the Mitogenic Principle¹

From the Department of Immunology and Medical Microbiology and the Tumor Biology Unit, Department of Pathology, University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida 32601

Abstract

Endotoxins from smooth strains of Salmonella typhimurium and from rough variants of Ra, Rc and Re chemotype were mitogenic for mouse spleen cells. Haptenic polysaccharides and native protoplasmic polysaccharides possessed very little mitogenicity. Lipid A was strongly mitogenic. Mild alkaline hydrolysis of complete endotoxin or lipid A, a procedure which cleaves off ester-linked fatty acids, caused a substantial loss of mitogenic activity. These data indicate that endotoxin acts as a nonspecific or general mitogen and that the mitogenic response is not mediated by immunologic mechanisms.

Footnotes

¹ This paper was supported in part by grants from the American Cancer Society (a Henry J. Leonard Memorial Grant for Cancer Research, ACS-ET-6C), the Florida Division of the American Cancer Society (F-7-OUF), and the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (HD-00384), and American Cancer Society Institutional Grant (IN-62-G), National Institute of General Medical Sciences Training Grants GM-01996, and the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Training Grant AI-00401, and Research Grant AI-17257 from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

² Trainee supported by National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Grant TI-AI-0128. From a dissertation submitted to the Graduate School of University of Florida in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy.