Inverse relationship between net electric charge on the antigen and that on the sensitized cell in cellular immune response: demonstration with basic encephalitogen of the brain

An inverse relationship exists between the net-electrical charge of immunogens and the antibodies elicited (1). The cellular basis of the net charge phenomenon has been established for both positively and negatively charged immunogens, by cell separation techniques over columns of opposite charge (7, 8). To establish whether this phenomenon can be extended to include cell-mediated immunity, the response to basic encephalitogenic protein (BE) which induces experimental allergic encephalomyelitis (EAE) was now investigated. Lymph node cells from sensitized strain 13 guinea pigs were fractionated over positively and negatively charged columns and compared to unfractionated cell populations in two assay systems: (a) in vitro response to BE in terms of lymphocyte transformation and (b) the passive transfer of EAE to unsensitized syngeneic recipients. The response was found to be confined to the fraction of cells eluted from glass bead columns, namely, the more negative cells. Cells eluted from poly-L-lysine-coated glass bead columns (i.e., positive cells) were devoid of the capacity to respond to this antigen either in vivo or in vitro. It was previously established that thymocytes rather than bone marrow cells account for the inverse charge phenomenon as assayed by T-helper-cell function in in vivo antibody production (8). We have now extended the inverse charge effect to include cell-mediated immune response of the delayed hypersensitivity type.