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Wasting Disease Induced with Cortisol Acetate¹

III. Immunologic Studies

From the Department of Botany and Microbiology, Montana State University, Bozeman, Montana

Abstract

The extent of immunologic impairment and time of immunologic recovery was studied in germfree mice following the neonatal administration of cortisol acetate.

The hemolysin and hemagglutinin response to sheep erythrocytes was found to be markedly impaired for at least 30 days, but had fully recovered 50 days after cortisol treatment.

The ability to reject tail skin allografts was fully developed 20 days after cortisol treatment. The recovery of the homograft reaction appeared to be related to the time of functional recovery of the thymus and peripheral lymphoid system.

The ability of spleen cells from GF mice to elicit the GVH reaction was severely impaired for 10 days following treatment with cortisol. By day 30, the GVH reactivity of spleen cells from treated mice was comparable to that of control cells.

The significance of these results obtained in germfree mice is discussed in relation to the role of the thymus and the normal bacterial flora in immunologic recovery.

Footnotes

This investigation was supported by Research Grant AI-06552-04 from the National Institutes of Health.