Adoptive transfer of immunity to dysentery bacilli with immune T lymphocytes from mice orally immunized with Shigella sonnei bacilli.

It has been found previously that live virulent dysentery bacilli administered orally into mice induced immunity against subsequent infection of the animals with lethal dose of these organisms introduced i.v. The experiments revealed that this immunity could be transferred with spleen cells. This report shows that treatment with antiserum prepared against the mouse theta antigen, in the presence of complement, abrogated the ability of specific immune cells to protect the recipient mice against lethal infection with dysentery bacilli. However, treatment of the cells with anti-immunoglobulin serum, in the presence of complement, did not affect the capacity of the immune cells in the adoptive transfer experiments to protect the recipients against dysentery bacilli. Thus, T cells are required for the development of the cell mediated response occurring after oral immunization of mice with live pathogenic bacilli.