Schultz-Dale Reaction in the Demonstration of Radiation-induced Changes of Tissue Antigenic Composition

Summary

An experiment was conducted on the immunization of guinea-pigs with homogenized rat tissues (spleen, intestine and testes) mixed with Freund's adjuvant. Tissues were obtained one day after lethal whole-body x-ray exposure. Anaphylactic sensitivity, as demonstrated by the Schultz-Dale reaction after desensitization in vitro with the blood sera of normal rats, has shown that the spleen of irradiated animals has some antigenic compounds which are not present in the blood sera of normal rats, but which exist in the sera of irradiated rats. Muscle organs from intestinal tissue sensitized animals were much less specifically activated, and testicular tissue did not manifest any antigenic specificity. It is proposed that there is no correlation between the tissue radiosensitivity and the radiation-induced change of its antigenicity.