Experimental allergic encephalomyelitis in mice: adoptive transfer of disease is modulated by the presence of natural suppressor cells.

Normal, untreated syngeneic recipients of lymphocytes from mice with experimental allergic encephalomyelitis (EAE) do not generally express adoptively transferred disease. Cell transfer of EAE is more successful when syngeneic recipients are treated with cyclophosphamide (CY) prior to the injection of donor cells. Normal, untreated recipients that do not develop EAE after receiving EAE donor lymphocytes are also unresponsive to subsequent encephalitogenic challenge. Those CY-treated recipients that fail to develop EAE after cell transfer do develop EAE after subsequent challenge. After reconstitution with normal splenic lymphocytes, CY-treated recipients do not develop EAE after subsequent challenge. These findings suggest the presence of an intrinsic natural suppressor cell subpopulation in naive mice which modulate the expression of adoptively transferred T lymphocytes.