Læknablaðið : fylgirit - 01.06.1982, Page 54

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REJECTION OF SKIN ALLOGRAFTS: IMMUNE SUPPRES-
SION OBTAINED BY GASTRIC IMMUNIZATION.
M. Lau Laursen, MD, PhD, Dept. of Medicine
The County Hospital, DK-4ooo Roskilde
Skin grafts were transplanted across a genetic
barrier from C3HxAKR hybrid mice into AKR mice.
Survival of grafts was prolonged in mice prior
immunized by gastric inoculations of donor spleen
cells weekly for 3-5 weeks but not by the same do-
ses of syngeneic spleen cells. The immune suppres-
sion obtained was more pronounced in males than in
females immunized by gavage.
The graft rejection was suppressed, too, in AKR
mice receiving spleen cells or serum from AKR mice
immunized through the gastric route with donor
spleen cells but not in AKR mice having the same
material transferred from non-immunized animals.
Treatment of the recipients with cyclophospha-
mid (CPA) simultaneously with prior immunization
did not abolish but intensified the immune suppres-
sive effect obtained by gastric immunization.
Consequently, it seems likely that treatment of
recipients with CPA does not act solely by reducing
rejective immunologic factors but acts selectively
on the immune function, promoting induction of im-
mune suppressive factors.
The nature of immune suppressive factors remains
uncertain, but they might be immunoglobulins. That
the activity in serum from mice immunized by gavage
was absorbable with protein A and antimouse-IgG
linked to Sepharose lends support to this sugge-
stion.