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Humoral Immunity in Experimental Syphilis

I. The Demonstration of Resistance Conferred by Passive Immunization^1,2,

From the Department of Microbiology and Immunology, School of Medicine, University of California, Los Angeles, California 90024

Abstract

Evidence of a role for humoral factor(s) in immunity to experimental syphilis has been provided by the demonstration that passive immunization of rabbits by daily i.v. injections of immune serum significantly delays the appearance and markedly diminishes the severity and duration of lesions which develop after challenge with Treponema pallidum. Five rabbits were injected daily over 37 days with 3 ml/kg body weight of pooled immune rabbit serum injection with 1.1 x 10³T. pallidum, Nichols strain, at each of four sites. The animals developed atypical lesions of short duration after an average delay in onset of 28 days short duration after an average delay in onset of 28 days beyond the development of typical lesions in control animals similarly injected with nonimmune serum or saline. The failure of passive immunization to provide complete protection was evident not only in the development of the atypical lesions, but also in the demonstration of disseminated infection in the tissues of three of the four surviving animals 7 months after challenge. The possibility that incomplete protection may have been due to 1) insufficient immune serum levels, 2) intracellular location of T. pallidum, and/or 3) cell-mediated mechanisms is discussed.

Footnotes

¹ This research was supported by Contracts N00014-69-A-0200-4039; NR 136-912 from the Office of Naval Research, 21-74-503 from the Center for Disease Control, United States Public Health Service, V3-181-26 from the World Health Organization, and Grant AI-12601-01 from the National Institutes of Health.

² This work was presented in part at the 72nd Annual Meeting of the American Society for Microbiology, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, April 25, 1972, and at the 73rd Annual Meeting of the American Society for Microbiology, Miami, Florida, May 10, 1973.

³ In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Doctor of Philosophy degree, University of California, Los Angeles. Predoctoral trainee supported by Training Grant AI00249 from the United States Public Health Service.

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