Expulsion of Nippostrongylus brasiliensis from the intestine of rats: attempts to initiate worm expulsion by cell transfer in an immunologically inert allogeneic environment.

Abstract

Parental-strain immune mesenteric lymph node cells (IMLNC) did not cause the rejection of damaged <i>Nippostrongylus brasiliensis </i>worms when transferred to non-irradiated F1-hybrid rats, even though these cells rejected damaged worms in non-irradiated, parental-strain recipients. Reconstitution of heavily irradiated rats (750 rad) with IMLNC and bone marrow cells (BMC), which were syngeneic with respect to each other but which were allogeneic with respect to the irradiated recipient, did not cause the expulsion of transplanted damaged worms. In a collateral histological study, it was shown that the irradiation dose (750 rad) was sufficient to abolish the intrinsic immunological reactivity of recipient rats as transferred IMLNC and BMC successfully repopulated the spleens of irradiated allogeneic recipients. These results show that heavily irradiated rats still exert an active allogeneic effect on adoptively transferred IMLNC and BMC. This indicates that it will not be possible to investigate the role of cell-mediated immune reactions by cellular transfer of resistance to infection with helminth parasites across major and perhaps even minor histo-incompatibility barriers.