Depression of the T Cell Phenomenon of Contact Sensitivity by T Cells from Unresponsive Mice

Abstract

Gershon and Kondo¹ provided evidence that T cells from unresponsive mice depressed the antibody response of normal mice to sheep erythrocytes, and introduced the term “infectious tolerance”. Jacobson et al.² showed that T cells were responsible for the prolonged allotypic suppression in mice which may be a model for immunological unresponsiveness. Unresponsiveness to picryl chloride (PCI) produced by pretreatment with picryl sulphonic acid (PSA) is also an example of infectious tolerance (positive unresponsiveness)³. In particular, the transfer of lymph node cells from unresponsive to normal mice limited the recipient's contact sensitivity response to PCI. These findings raised the question whether the suppressor cell responsible for positive unresponsiveness was a T cell.