Abstract
This work concerns the involvement of brown adipose tissue in the immune system of the mouse. To remove the paired lobes of the interscapular brown adipose tissue, neonatal adipectomy was performed in dd, C3H/He, C57BL/6, and BALB/C mice of both sexes. These mice were examined at 6-8 weeks of age for the production of antibodies against sheep red blood cells (SRBC) and flagellin of Salmonella adelaide, delayed-type skin reaction to picryl chloride, quantitative estimation of the macrophage migration inhibition to ovalbumin injected with Freund's complete adjuvant, and acquisition of resistance to reinfection after inoculation with attenuated live S. enteritidis vaccine. Neonatal adipectomy enhanced the production of anti-SRBC (by the direct method alone) and anti-flagellin antibodies. There was a discrepancy between these findings and those of Jankovic et al. who reported that neonatal adipectomy did not affect the humoral immune response of rats to bovine serum albumin or SRBC. Cell-mediated immunity to picryl chloride, ovalbumin, and salmonella infection was much more pronounced in adipectomized mice than in intact mice. These results were in complete agreement with those obtained by Jankovic et al. from rats.
This paper also describes postnatal histological changes of the interscapular brown adipose tissue of mice, including newborn and 6-month-old ones, which were reared at room temperature without receiving any particular treatment.
