Abstract
Summary
The chemical agent, tilorone, depleted the lymphocyte population in certain areas of the spleen, lymph nodes, and Peyer's patches. The pattern was like that caused by neonatal thymectomy, thymic aplasia, or antilymphocyte serum. The thymus itself was not affected. The selective depletion of the thymus-dependent areas was unlike the nonspecific effects of other immunosuppressive chemicals and may be related to the ability of tilorone to inhibit cell-mediated immunity selectively. The effects of tilorone were not dependent on the presence of adrenal, thymus or spleen. The depleted tissues were rapidly repopulated, and the replenished thymic-dependent areas were resistant to further doses of the same drug.
We thank Richard Sowinski for assistance in the experiments and Morris Moritz for photomicrographs.
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