1566 Lyt - 1 EFFECTOR CELLS IN POSTTHYMECTOMY AUTOIMMUNE DISEASE

The thymec tomy of some strains of mice dur ing the critical neonatal period (NTx),X day 2-4 after birth was reported from this laboratory to induce various organ-specific au to immune diseases such as oophoritis (1-3), gastritis with megaloblastic anemia (4), thyroiditis (5), orchitis (6), and coagulat ing gland adenitis of the prostate (6). This experimental model is quite unique in that the diseases develop without any exogeneous sensitization by antigens; furthermore, the spectrum of organs affected, histological features, and the existence of organ-specific autoantibodies are quite similar to those observed in h u m a n organ-specific au to immune diseases. Recently, it was demonstrated (7) that au to immune oophoritis could be adoptively transferred successfully into syngeneic newborn mice with splenic T cells obtained from NTx mice with oophoritis. The gastritis as well as the oophoritis also could be transferred into syngeneic adult a thymic nude mice with resulting organ-specific lesions and circulating autoantibody(ies) (8). Serological investigation of cell surface antigens on mouse T cells in recent years, particularly Lyt antigens (9, 10), has made it possible to dissect functionally different T cell subpopulat ions and to characterize T cells at part icular differentiation stages. In this report we have a t tempted to characterize the cell surface antigens and other immunobiological features of the spleen cells responsible for adopt ive transfer of the au to immune oophoritis into newborn mice or a thymic nude mice. The findings obtained suggest that cell-mediated immuni ty quite similar to delayed-type hypersensitivity (DTH) reactions was involved in the destruction of the ovaries in NTx mice.