Influence of age on the ability of thymic adherent cells to produce factors in vitro which modulate immune responses of thymocytes.

Thymic adherent cells from BALB/c mice ranging in age from 1 day to 20 months were cultured in vitro for 1 month. The supernatants, collected at weekly intervals, were assessed for their ability to augment the antigen/mitogen responses of thymocytes from 2- or 4-week-old BALB/c mice and spleen cells from 3-month-old nude BALB/c mice. The results indicate that (a) the ability of thymic adherent cells to produce an augmenting factor(s) declines sharply between 2.5 and 5 months of age; (b) thymic adherent cells of 1-day-old mice synthesize an inhibitory factor(s) in addition to the augmenting factor, while those of young adult mice synthesize only the augmenting factor, and those of 20-month-old mice synthesize primarily the inhibitory factor; (c) supernatants containing the augmenting factor can be neutralized by mixing them with supernatants containing the inhibitory factor; (d) thymocytes which are responsive to the augmenting factor are immature as judged by their sensitivity to dexamethasone and by their ability to bind macrophages; and (e) spleen cells of normal and nude mice are not responsive to either the augmenting or the inhibitory factor of the supernatant.