Nature of the Normal Lymphocyte Transfer Reaction

Abstract

THE normal lymphocyte transfer (NLT) reaction is aroused when lymphocytes from one normal adult guinea-pig¹ or human being² are injected intradermally into another normal adult guinea-pig or human being, and it makes itself apparent as an inflammation of delayed onset which reaches its peak about two days after injection. Reactions which are later to develop into strong reactions are already discernible as soon as 15 h after injection, and for this reason some immunologists have been hesitant to accept our interpretation that the inflammatory process is the outward sign of an immuiiological reaction of the lymphocytes against their recipient, that is, of a primary ‘graft-versus-host’ reaction. Our original case for this interpretation rested (a) on its firm theoretical foundation, and (b) on the fact that the intensities of the reactions aroused by lymphocytes from a guinea-pig R in a panel of potential homografb donors D₁, D₂, D₃… were almost exactly correlated with the intensities of the reactions provoked by grafting skin from D₁, D₂, D₃… on R. This is just as it should be if the NLT reaction is an immunological response of the R lymphocytes to the ‘transplantation antigens’ of the D guineapigs. We now give further and, as we believe, conclusive evidence under two headings that this interpretation is in fact correct.