Suppression of tuberculin reaction in the scorbutic guinea pig.

Abstract

IN a recent publication from this laboratory it was noted that vitamin C deficiency in guinea pigs prevented induction of experimental allergic encephalomyelitis as well as development of the tuberculin reaction1. Replacement of the scorbutic diet with a normal stock diet four weeks after deprivation began and three weeks after inoculation of the challenge vaccine containing brain and killed Mycobacterium butyricum in water-in-oil emulsion permitted subsequent development of tuberculin sensitivity although the guinea pigs failed to develop clinical or histological signs of experimental allergic encephalomyelitis. It was important to determine the exact basis for the animals' failure to respond to tuberculin by development of a skin reaction because of the bearing this information might have on the induction of experimental allergic encephalomyelitis. Did absence of vitamin C prevent the end organ response (development of a positive skin reaction to tuberculin or, in the case of experimental allergic encephalomyelitis, the inflammatory lesions in the brain), or was the vitamin essential to the primary immunological response to the injected antigen(s)?