Comparison of specificities of humoral and cellular immune responses to haptens

In this study we induced humoral and cellular immunity to three isomers of aminosulfanilic and aminobenzoic acids and compared their respective specificities. These studies were facilitated by using a new method for preferentially inducing a cellular immune response to haptens: the haptens were covalently coupled to mycobacteria and injected into animals in incomplete Freund's adjuvant. Humoral antibody was iduced by coupling the same isomers to bovine serum albumin and injecting them into animals in complete Freund's adjuvant. Both groups of animals were examined for hapten-specific cellular immunity (migration inhibition factor, delayed skin tests) and for antibody response (passive hemolysin test). The results show that although both cell-mediated and humoral responses can discriminate the para, meta and ortho isomeric forms of the haptens used, the antibody response demonstrated much less cross-reactivity. The relevance of this finding to different requirements for B and T cells in antigenic recognition is discussed.