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Autoimmunity and Aging: The Age-Related Response of Mice of a Long-Lived Strain to Trinitrophenylated Syngeneic Mouse Red Blood Cells¹

From the Department of Microbiology and Immunology, University of California, Los Angeles, and Department of Pathology, University of California, Los Angeles

Abstract

Mice of 1.5, 9, 22, and 31 to 32 months of age were injected with the thymus-dependent antigen, TNP-SRC, or the thymus-independent antigen, TNP-MRC. The anti-SRC and TNP immune responses to TNP-SRC were markedly reduced in older mice, whereas the anti-TNP response to the TNP-MRC showed no substantial decline. Young mice produced higher anti-TNP plaque-forming cell responses after injection of TNP-SRC than after TNP-MRC, whereas in older mice the reverse obtained. Old mice but not young mice displayed a high anti-SRC cross-reactive response after injection of TNP-MRC. The avidity of anti-TNP antibody of young mice immunized with TNP-SRC was higher than that following immunization with TNP-MRC, whereas the avidities of anti TNP antibodies from old mice injected with these two reagents were the same. Those individual mice which showed a poorly regulated immune response also displayed an autologous anti-MRC plaque-forming cell response after injection of either TNP-SRC or TNP-MRC. It is suggested that mechanisms mediated by suppressor T cells may be responsible for regulating the autoimmune response to modified self antigens, and that these are severely impaired in aged individuals.

Footnotes

¹ This study was supported by United States Public Health Service Grants AG424 and CA12800, and a special grant from the "Concern Foundation," Los Angeles, to Dr. David Naor.

² Present address of Dr. D. Naor: Lautenberg Center for General and Tumor Immunology, the Hebrew University Hadassah Medical School, Jerusalem, Israel.