The Journal of Experimental Medicine, Vol 132, 317-328,
Copyright © 1970 by The Rockefeller University Press
SYNERGISM OF THYMUS AND BONE MARROW IN THE PRODUCTION OF GRAFT-VERSUS-HOST SPLENOMEGALY IN X-IRRADIATED HOSTS
Henry R. Hilgard M.D.1
1 From the Tissue Bank, Clinical Investigation Department, Naval Medical Research Institute, Bethesda, Maryland 20014
Graft-versus-host splenomegaly may be elicited from 500 R X-irradiated F1 hybrid hosts if the hosts are injected with bone marrow cells and thymus cells from parental strain donors. Cells from thymus only or bone marrow only will not elicit graft-versus-host splenomegaly in these hosts. In this requirement for cells from both sources, the bone marrow cells play a nonimmunologic, proliferative role in the splenomegaly, and the thymus cells carry out the immunologic attack. Thus the mechanism of this synergism is quite different from that reported for the humoral immune response to sheep erythrocytes in which both thymus and marrow interact in the production of the specific immunologic response itself.
Submitted on April 1, 1970