Age-dependent variations of antibody avidity.

Age-dependent variations of antibody avidity were studied in the C3HeB/FeJ mouse. Spleen cells from donors of different ages (10--720 days) were transferred and stimulated with TNP-HRBC in lethally irradiated syngenic recipients. The anti-TNP antibody response of the donor cells was estimated from the number of direct PFC per recipient spleen by the Jerne technique with TNP-SRBC. Avidity of the antibodies secreted by PFC was evaluated from the amount of added TNP-BSA that inhibited 50% of the anti-TNP PFC. Under these experimental conditions allowing the exclusion of any influence of the donor milieu during the immune response, age-dependent variations of the antibody response and avidity could be attributed to changes in the donor spleen cell population. Avidity was found to increase with the response and to vary parabolically with age. After appropriate correction of the number of PFC to make it independent from age, avidity values were fitted by a multiple curvilinear regression in which the independent variables playing a significant role were the corrected number of PFC in its linear term and the age in its linear and quadratic terms. From comparison of the standard coefficients of this regression, the observed variations of avidity could be attributed in part (82%) to the response and in part (18%) to the age. For any value of response, avidity increased 15-fold from day 10 to reach a maximum at day 110 and then declined 5-fold at the age of 720 days. Heterogeneity of avidity also changed parabolically with age as high avidity classes were present in adulthood and absent at 10 and 720 days.