Lytic Effect of Bacterial Products on Lymphocytes of Tuberculous Animals

Abstract

Introduction. Buffy coats or splenic explants from tuberculous guinea pigs 1 or tuberculous rabbits 2 are killed when grown in concentrations of tuberculin which are harmless for normal animal tissue explants. This phenomenon is not a manifestation of anaphylaxis, for tissue culture explants from animals sensitized to horse serum are not injured by horse serum added to the cultural fluid. 3 The cytotoxic effect is disease specific, however for tuberculin will not injure tissue culture explants from guinea pigs infected with the streptococcus which causes chronic lymphoadenitis in the guinea pig, whereas a soluble protein derived from the homologous streptococcus will cause cell death in tissue culture explants from guinea pigs showing the delayed type of skin hypersensitivity to streptococcal protein. 4 These studies have been done with explants composed of a variety of cell types and observations have been made after 18 hours in order to measure the degree of cellular migration as well as change in cell morphology. The present report is a restudy of the cytotoxic effect of tuberculin on tissue cultures derived from tuberculous animals. The methods used differ from those previously reported in that the explanted cells have been studied in suspensions instead of in clots; quantitative measurements on the different cell types in the suspensions have been carried out and the time of the observations has been shortened to 2 hours or less. These modifications in technic have made it possible to evaluate the effect of tuberculin on the separate cell types present and to suggest the possible role which some of these cells play in the tuberculin reaction.