Synergism Between Peyer's Patch Cells and Spleen Cells in Humora Antibody Production

Abstract

Abstract Good and his colleagues have suggested that vertebrate immunity may have evolved into a two-component system: a thymus-dependent component primarily regulating cellular immunity, and a bursal-dependent system primarily regulating humoral immunity. These workers proposed that such structures as the tonsils, appendix and Peyer's patches may be the primary or central mammalian analogue of the avian bursa of Fabricius, whose removal causes ablation of humoral antibody responses in birds. They found that extirpation of gut-associated lymphoepithelial tissue in rabbits, followed by irradiation, produced deficiencies of specific antibody and immunoglobulin formation (1–3). We have been interested in defining a possible role for Peyer's patches in humoral immunity. We studied first the immune response of spleen and Peyer's patch cells in 1-month-old C57BL/6 mice stimulated with intraperitoneal (i.p.) injections of 2.5 × 108 sheep red blood cells (SRBC).