Antibody Formation in Endotoxin-Tolerant Mice. ∗

Summary

The red cell plaqueing technique reveals that hemolysin-forming cells do not increase after endotoxin injection into an endo-toxin-tolerant animal. In contrast such increases occur following endotoxin injection into non-tolerant mice or following sheep red blood cell injections into endotoxin-tolerant animals. It was also shown that the injection of carbon into an endotoxin-tolerant animal immediately restores the animal's capacity to react to endotoxin with increases in hemolysin-forming spleen cells. These data suggest that endotoxin tolerance interferes with the ability of endotoxin to release a stimulator for plasma cells, but such tolerance does not interfere with the ability of antibody-forming cells to respond to the injection of specific antigen. Also, stimulatory oligodeoxyribonucleotides still can function in the endotoxin-tolerant animal. The bearing of these observations on the problem of relationships between elevated host-resistance and elevated antibody formation have been discussed.