Influence of Chloramphenicol and Cetophenicol on Antibody Formation in Mice

Abstract

Summary

The immunosuppressive effect of chloramphenicol in vivo has been demonstrated in mice at low dose in short-term experiments by application of the technique of localized hemolysis in agar. The antibiotic suppressed the increase in numbers of hemolysin-forming spleen cells found 42 hr after immunization with sheep red blood cells or treatment with endotoxin. Cetophenicol, an analog of chloramphenicol having the same antibacterial spectrum and ability to inhibit de novo protein synthesis, also suppressed the response to the specific antigen, sheep erythrocytes. In contrast, however, cetophenicol enhanced the proliferation of hemolysin-forming cells induced by endotoxin. These opposite influences disappeared when the two antibiotics were injected into the same endotoxin-stimulated mice. Neither analog by itself modified the normal background of antibody-forming cells found in unstimulated mice. The implications of these findings for the modes of action of the analogs and for the influence of endotoxin are discussed.