CELL-MEDIATED IMMUNITY IN PYELONEPHRITIS

Passive Transfer of Adoptive Immunity to Retrograde Proteus mirabilis Pyelonephritis in the Rat

Abstract

A system was described for studying an adoptive immunity to retrograde Proteus mirabilis (Pm) pyelonephritis in the rat. Cyclophosphamide-treated (100mg/kg) rats were challenged with Pm retrogradely, immediately after receiving intravenously 1.5-2.0×10⁸ cells of the following sources: Immune spleen cells from retrograde Pm pyelonephritic rats and thymus and spleen cells from normal rats respectively. Protective immunity was measured by the presence or absence of renal abscesses and their frequency.
The demonstration of the protective immunity was dependent upon the Pm dose challenged. When challenged with 10⁵Pm, the development of renal abscesses in the former 2 groups receiving either immune cells or normal thymus cells was inhibited significantly compared to the latter group. The inhibition was not significant in the case challenged with 10⁸Pm.
Since a small amount of serum antibody was found only in the immune cell recipient, the immunity was considered to be conferred by the transferred cells. It was also suggested that the observed adoptive immunity might be due to the T-cells in the transferred cell populations since a protection was also observed in the normal thymus cell recipient. The fact that the simultaneous administration of immune serum did not affect the result suggests that the resistance developed in the recipient was dependent upon the cell-mediated immunity in this system.