Effect of neonatal injection with antibodies to Leishmania mexicana on its growth in adult infected mice.

Mice inoculated with monoclonal antibodies (MAb) directed to Leishmania mexicana antigens were not protected from growth of a subsequent challenge infection; this was the case even when those antibodies were capable of inhibiting parasite growth in vitro. However F(ab')2 fragments of one antibody (1E1) were protective in vivo. When neonatal mice were injected with MAb and subsequently infected as adults, the animals were more susceptible to parasite growth than uninjected controls. This increased susceptibility could be adoptively transferred with Lyt-1+ cells. Separate groups of animals were immunized with different MAb to L. mexicana, and parasite growth in these animals was studied. In no case was parasite growth altered, though these mice did produce specific antibodies directed against the immunizing MAb (anti-idiotypic antibodies). When neonatal mice were injected with these latter reagents, they were found to be more resistant to challenge infection than control animals. This resistance was associated with an enhanced ability of spleen cells from these mice to produce, on stimulation with parasite antigens in vitro, a factor rendering normal macrophages cytocidal for L. mexicana.