Adoptive transfer of experimental autoimmune hepatitis in mice--cellular interaction between donor and recipient mice.

This report extends our previous study on experimental autoimmune hepatitis in C57BL/6(B6) mice. Cellular immunity involved in the induction of liver injury in this model was studied by transfer of primed spleen cells from hepatitis donor mice to syngeneic normal recipient mice. The most prominent liver damage in recipient B6 mice was induced by transfer of nylon wool adherent spleen cells from hepatitis donor mice, and T cells in this fraction were the essential requirement for the liver damage in the recipient mice. Nylon wool adherent spleen cells from hepatitis donor mice after depletion of the suppressor T-cell function by low-dose (300 rad) irradiation induced more severe liver injury compared to the same cells without irradiation. When the recipient mice were depleted of lymphocytes by low or high dose (700 rad) whole body irradiation, transfer of primed spleen cells from hepatitis donor mice did not induce liver lesion in the lymphocyte-depleted mice. This low susceptibility of lymphocyte-depleted recipient mice to primed spleen cells of hepatitis mice was no longer demonstrated after reconstitution with normal spleen cells. In a cell-migration study using 51Cr-labelled spleen cells, it was shown that a considerable number of infiltrating cells in the liver of recipient mice were derived from recipient mice themselves. These results seem to indicate that cell-to-cell interaction between radiosensitive precursor cells of recipient mice and liver-antigen-primed T cells from hepatitis donor mice play an essential role in the induction of liver injury in the recipient mice.