Immunological unresponsiveness to HSA in chickens.

HSA injected into chickens after hatching induces suppression of anti-HSA antibody formation. Unresponsive chickens react by producing the anti-HSA antibodies earlier and more intensively after BSA challenge than after challenge with HSA. This effect cannot be ascribed to T cells, because they were found to play no substantial role in the unresponsiveness to HSA. Neither was active suppression, which could account for the depressed antibody production, detected. B cell inactivation seems to be the major mechanism involved in this unresponsiveness. However, some additional mechanism must prevent B cells of unresponsive chickens from producing anti-HSA antibodies after HSA challenge, although they are able to form them after immunization with BSA. We suggest that cellular interactions, either between B cells of different specificities or between B cells and macrophages, are responsible for this differential reactivity.