Termination of Immunologic Tolerance with Tolerated Antigen Complexed with Specific Antibody

Female NTH albino and BALB/c mice were tolerized with chicken egg lysozyme or capsular polysaccharide of Diplococcus pneumoniae type III (SIII). Isolated spleen cells from tolerant mice were incubated in vitro with antigen-antibody complexes formed with the tolerated antigen and specific xenogeneic, allogeneic and syngeneic immune serum. The spleen cells were washed and returned to the individual donor mice and their immune response to the tolerated antigen was assayed. In all cases one or more concentrations of specific antibody when complexed with the tolerated antigen was able to terminate the tolerant state. The successful use of specific antibodies raised in a syngeneic strain of mice (BALB/c) to terminate immunologic tolerance in other BALB/c mice with demonstrated T and B cell tolerance, precludes T cell recognition of a foreign antibody as a mechanism to explain these results.