Intrasplenic immunization for the induction of humoral and cell-mediated immunity to nitrocellulose-bound antigen.

Intrasplenic immunization of mice has been shown to induce both specific humoral and cell-mediated immunity to minute amounts of nitrocellulose-bound antigen, electroblotted from sodium dodecyl sulfate-polyacrylamide gels. The test antigens used were aberrantly expressed molecules immunoprecipitated from the lysate of highly immunogenic ('xenogenized') murine lymphoma cells, derived by mutagenesis from a parental, nonimmunogenic cell line. The stained bands of nitrocellulose blots corresponding to the appropriate molecular weights were cut out and the resulting strips deposited in the spleens of recipient mice on three occasions at 15 day intervals. 2 weeks later, the antibody response in the serum was analyzed using a standard ELISA procedure. Cell-mediated immunity was investigated in vitro in terms of cytotoxic T lymphocyte (CTL) activity to radiolabeled xenogenized tumor target cells. In vivo, the immunized mice were assayed for their ability to mount a delayed-type hypersensitivity (DTH) response following footpad challenge with the xenogenized tumor. Our results confirm previous data that the intrasplenic deposition of minute amounts of protein immobilized on a solid matrix effectively stimulates production of specific antibodies. In addition, our results demonstrate that this procedure may also result in the development of T cell-dependent responses detectable in in vitro and in vivo assays of cell-mediated immunity.