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Effect of Appendectomy and of Thymectomy, with X-Irradiation, on the Production of Antibodies to Two Protein Antigens in Young Rabbits¹

From The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, and the Department of Pediatrics, School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania

Abstract

Three-week-old rabbits were thymectomized, appendectomized, or both, and then subjected to 450 r of whole body x-irradiation, together with non-operated litter mates. Four weeks later, when normal rabbits would have recovered from the effects of such x-irradiation, all the animals were injected with a mixture of conalbumin and S. typhi.

The blood lymphocyte counts of thymectomized rabbits were distinctly lower than those of the irradiated controls, but those of the appendectomized rabbits were unaffected.

Antibody responses to conalbumin and to flagellar antigen of S. typhi antigens showed deficiencies in both the thymectomized and appendectomized groups, with differences in the responses of the two groups to the respective antigens. The thymectomized-irradiated rabbits showed a distinct diminution in antibody response to conalbumin, but a normal response, in comparison to the irradiated control animals, in the production of H-agglutinins to Salmonella. The appendectomized animals showed a diminution in anti-conalbumin production, similar to that of the thymectomized rabbits, but these rabbits produced no detectable H-agglutinins to Salmonella at all within the first 14 days after the injection of the antigen. In the thymectomized-appendectomized group, there was a reduced response to conalbumin, and also some response to the Salmonella, although the group only appendectomized had produced no detectable antibody to the flagellar antigen.

In non-irradiated rabbits injected on the same schedule, the control (non-operated) rabbits showed titers as high as had been shown by the control irradiated rabbits. In these non-irradiated rabbits no difference was observed among control, appendectomized or thymectomized groups.

Examinations of a number of the sera indicated that the anti-Salmonella antibodies remained predominantly of macroglobulin character throughout the 14-day period of study, whereas the anti-conalbumin contained a considerable fraction of 7 S antibody on the 14th day.

Possible relations of the effects of the two organs excised are discussed, in relation to the distribution of each antibody between macroglobulin and 7 S antibody.

Footnotes

¹ This study was supported by Research Grant HE 04598 of the National Heart Institute and Grant 5 T1 AI 154 of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Institutes of Health, United States Public Health Service.

² Present address: Department of Internal Medicine, Kitano Hospital, Osaka, and The Second Division, Department of Internal Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, Kyoto University, Kyoto, Japan.