Factors which determine the accumulation of immunoblasts in gut and skin.

The capacity of immunoblasts from two sources (1) peripheral lymph nodes draining the site of application of a contact sensitizer and (2) mesenteric lymph nodes from mice infected with the gut parasite T. spiralis to migrate to the gut and to inflamed skin sites were compared. The peripheral lymph node blasts readily entered skin sites in a non-specific way but failed to migrate to the gut even when inflammation was induced. By contrast, the mesenteric lymph node blasts readily migrated to the gut in normal mice and in increased amounts to the gut of mice infected with T. spiralis or inflamed with oral turpentine. A small proportion of mesenteric lymph node blasts did, however, migrate, non-specifically to the skin but in much smaller amounts than peripheral lymph node blasts. We conclude that the migration of immunoblasts to the gut has some specificity related to the source from which the cells were taken but little specificity with regard to intraluminal antigen.