CHAPTER 7 



ROLE OF THE LYMPHOCYTE IN 

 ANTIBODY FORMATION* 



JAMES C. ROBERTS, JR. 



Over the past three decades convincing experimental evidence has shown 

 that cells in lymph nodes can produce classic "precipitating" antibodies. In 

 vivo studies have shown repeatedly that lymph leaving lymph nodes con- 

 tains more antibody than blood or than lymph entering the lymph nodes. 110 

 In vivo studies have also shown that washed cells from lymph nodes con- 

 tain more antibody than their extracellular milieu. 4 ' 11 - 1L> In vitro studies 

 of explained lymph nodes have demonstrated production of antibody by 

 living cells. 1318 Many studies have shown that, when cells are obtained from 

 the lymph nodes of immunized donor animals and transferred to homol- 

 ogous recipient animals, a specific antibody becomes evident in the recipient 

 which has the quality and quantity of that antibody which might be ex- 

 pected to be produced by the donor's cells rather than the recipient's 

 cells. 1950 



I am going to discuss experimental work performed in the Department of 

 Pathology, University of Pittsburgh, which used the cell transfer techniques 

 to observe the role of lymph node cells in the synthesis of antibody. These 

 experiments were designed to determine (1) what happened to the trans- 

 ferred cells in the recipient, (2) how much precipitating antibody a known 

 number of transferred cells could produce, and (3) which cell types produced 

 the antibody. 



In these studies we used the cell transfer techniques developed by Land- 

 steiner and Chase 19 and by the Harrises 30 ' 31, 38, 41 " 43 and modified slightly by 



* I his work was performed in the Department of Pathology, University of Pittsburgh School 

 nl Medicine and was supported by the United States Atomic Energy Commission Contract AT- 

 (30-1)1205. 



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