Pathogenesis of route-related variation in T-suppressor response on immunization with mycobacteria.

The route of immunization was observed to play a significant role in deciding the outcome of immunization with killed mycobacterial vaccines. Earlier we reported that the slow growers were immunogenic by both the intraperitoneal (i.p.) and intradermal (i.d.) routes. In contrast, the rapid growers were immunogenic by the i.d. route only. Both rapid and slow growers generated the classical, antigen-specific Lyt-2 positive, T-cell-mediated suppression after i.p. immunization but not after i.d. immunization. Thus, in the case of the slow growers, T-cell-mediated suppression was only a component of the immune response generated after i.p. immunization. In contrast, in the case of Mycobacterium vaccae and the other rapid growers, the T-cell-mediated suppression was the predominant response with i.p. immunization. The T-cell-mediated suppression generated by i.p. immunization exhibited crossreactivity, the spectrum of which was dependent upon the dose of the immunization.