Regulation of primary antibody response in mice by two types of suppressor cells resistant to anti-thy-1 serum treatment.

The anti-SRBC antibody response of normal young adult mice (about 3 months old) was specifically suppressed, when the spleen cells derived from the syngeneic donor mice that had been previously primed with a high dose of SRBC were adoptively transferred at the time of antigenic challenge. The suppression was antigen-specific and was mediated by a fraction of the immune spleen cells which appeared to belong to either B cells or their progeny antibody-forming cells. The differences were observed in the properties of the suppressor cells in terms of the period after the priming and the radiosensitivity; i.e., immune spleen cells taken from the mice which had been immunized with SRBC 5 days earlier were able to suppress only 19S PFC, whereas those taken from the mice which had been immunized 14 days earlier were able to suppress both the 19S and 7S PFC responses, and the former cells were susceptible to 400 R X-rays, but not the latter. These two types of suppressor cells appeared to play an important role in the regulation of the sequential change of 19S and 7S antibodies during the primary immune response.