Hymenolepis nana: adoptive transfer of protective immunity and delayed type hypersensitivity response with mesenteric lymph node cells in mice.

A marked degree of footpad swelling was observed in BALB/c mice infected with Hymenolepis nana eggs, when soluble egg antigen was injected into their footpads 4 to 21 days after the egg infection, indicating delayed type hypersensitivity responses in infected mice. Adoptive transfer with mesenteric lymph node cells from donor mice (BALB/c strain; +/+) infected with eggs 4 days before cell collection could confer this hypersensitivity to recipient nude mice (BALB/c strain; nu/nu). These mesenteric lymph node cells were then divided into two fractions, blast-enriched and blast-depleted cells, by density gradient centrifugation with Percoll. The recipients intravenously injected with the blast-depleted cell fraction showed a marked increase in footpad thickness, whereas the intravenous transfer of the blast-enriched cell fraction resulted in an insignificant increase in footpad thickness. The transfer of the blast-enriched cell fraction, but not of the blast-depleted cell fraction, conferred a strong adoptive immunity on syngeneic recipient nude mice, when the immunity transferred was assessed by examining cysticercoids developed in the intestinal villi on Day 4 of challenge infection. The lack of delayed type hypersensitivity response in mice that received the blast-enriched cell population was not due to a lack of the capacity of the cells to induce the response, because the cells were capable of inducing a significant increase in thickness of footpads of normal mice when these cells were locally injected into the footpad together with soluble egg antigen.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)