Attempts to transfer experimental allergic neuritis with lymphocytes.

Attempts have been made to transfer experimental allergic neuritis (EAN) both by the intraneural and the intravenous injection of cells derived from Lewis rats with the disease into naive recipients of the same strain. Lymph node cells obtained 12 and 15 days after inoculation with bovine dorsal root in Freund's complete adjuvant were injected intraneurally. A small number of demyelinated axons were observed, but clinical weakness was not evident. Lymph node cells, lymph node cells cultured with concanavalin A, or cultured spleen cells from animals with EAN were transferred intravenously to normal rats. Uncultured lymph node cells were transferred to X-irradiated animals. There were no clinical or histological differences between these recipients and controls receiving cells from rats inoculated with Freund's adjuvant alone. The findings are discussed in relation to previous reports of attempts to transmit EAN by cell transfer.